Puregold Price Club reported a slight improvement in consolidated net income to P8.18 billion last year from P8.07 billion in 2020.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said the marginal growth was principally driven by the continuous management effort to improve gross margins, sustained strategic cost and expense management as well as the effect of the reduced corporate income tax with the implementation of the CREATE Law.

Puregold posted a 2.7 percent dip in consolidated net sales to P164.13 billion from P168.63 billion in 2020 due to the decline in customer’s visits particularly for the Puregold stores, with the government implementing health protocols in 2021 and people cautious of contracting the virus.

Also, base sales was higher than usual in 2020 specially in the first quarter, with people buying in panic, due to the looming lockdown brought about by the pandemic.

For the year ended December 31, 2021, the Group realized an increase of 3.2 percent in consolidated gross profit from P29.16 billion in 2020 at 17.3 percent margin to P30.08 billion at 18.3 percent margin in 2021.

This was driven by strong and continuing suppliers' support through trade discounts in the form of rebates and conditional discounts granted during the year.

Other operating income slightly increased by 1.7 percent from P3.16 billion in 2020 to P3.21 billion in 2021. With the lockdown restrictions starting to loosen up, some tenants resumed operations which resulted in an increase in rent income.

Operating expenses increased by 7.4 percent from P18.95 billion in 2020 to P20.35 billion in 2021 due mainly to the increase in operating expenses of Kareila both from newly opened stores and old stores.

In addition, operating expenses in prior period were partly lower driven by lockdown period in the first half of 2020.