Home and finishing construction supply retailer Wilcon Depot, Inc. reported an 84 percent surge in net income to P604 million in the first quarter of the year from the P328 million earned in the same period of 2020.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said “The improvement was at the back of a 19.4 percent hike in net sales and gross profit margin expansion even as interest and net other income declined and operating expenses increased.”

Net sales rose to P6.68 billion with a comparable sales growth of 9.8 percent. Higher transaction count particularly of stores in Luzon drove the turnaround in comparable sales.

All branches remained open despite the re-imposition of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila and nearby provinces starting from the last week of March.

During the quarter, two new depots were opened, one in Metro Manila and the other in the Visayas.

“We’re happy with our first quarter results and that we were able to achieve this despite the challenges brought about by the recent spike in Covid-19 cases and the reimposition of the ECQ in Metro Manila and nearby provinces,” said Wilcon President and CEO Lorraine Belo-Cincochan. 

She noted that, “The difference with this year’s ECQ is that all our branches remained open although we had shortened our operating hours because of the early curfew. We’re grateful to our frontliners and support teams who once again rose to the challenges of operating in even more difficult circumstances to serve our customers.”

Belo-Cincochan said “We are still set on opening seven more stores for the year, after the two we opened in January. We now have 65 stores, fulfilling our IPO commitment ahead of schedule.”

She added that, “Moving forward, we have placed adequate flexibility in our expansion plans, should market conditions warrant a shift – either it be a pause or an acceleration.”

Of its total net sales, Wilcon said the depot format stores contributed 97.2 percent, growing by 20.7 percent to P6.49 billion for the quarter. Comparable sales growth reached 10.7 percent accounting for 51.7 percent of the total net sales increase of the format.

Sales from the Home Essentials format contributed 2.1 percent of total net sales with a growth of 2.1 percent to close the quarter at P140 million.

Meanwhile, project sales’ contribution accounted for the remaining 0.7 percent totaling P48 million for the quarter.