Metro Retail Stores Group, Inc. (MRSGI) said Thursday its first-half net income fell 26.6 percent to P100.4 million from P136.8 million in the same period last year.
MRSGI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange first-half sales increased 6 percent year-on-year to P18 billion, driven by improved sales of existing stores and incremental sales from newly-opened outlets.
The company posted P9.3 billion in net sales in the second quarter, up by 7 percent from last year’s level.
“With the improved momentum from the second quarter and going into the second half of 2024, the company continues to hold an optimistic outlook for the rest of the year on the back of improvement in sales growth, cost management, and the projected opening of new stores planned in the third and fourth quarters,” said MRSGI president and chief operating officer Manuel Alberto.
Same-store sales in the second quarter ending June expanded 4.7percent, stronger than the 2.8-percent growth registered in the first quarter – bringing the blended same-store sales growth for the first half of 2024 to 3.8 percent.
Food retail sustained strong sales growth in the first six months at 7.9 percent on basic grocery items and additional sales from the supermarkets that were opened last year. General merchandise was nearly flat at 0.9 percent versus the prior year.
Blended gross margin in the first half decreased to 20.7 percent from 21.9 percent in the same period last year on higher share of food retail in total business, notably the lower margin wholesale category and the unwinding of excess inventory.
The decline in margin was slightly offset by the improvement in operating expense as the company continued to realize operating efficiency from cost management initiatives.
MRSGI aims to have a network of 160 stores by 2027.
