Wilcon Depot, Inc., the Philippines’ leading home improvement and finishing construction supplies retailer, reported a 40.7 percent hike in net income to P851 million in the first quarter of 2021 from the P604 million earned in the same period last year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said net sales grew 14.6 percent to P7.65 billion for the first quarter of 2022 from P6.68 billion in the same period last year driven mainly by comparable sales growth of 8.6 percent and contribution from new stores.

“We are pleased with our strong start for the year as our customers trooped back to our stores when the Covid-19 Omicron variant surge receded in February,” said Wilcon Chief Executive Officer Lorraine Belo-Cincochan.

She noted that, “Our comparable sales declined in January at the height of the surge but we turned around the downward trend to end the quarter with an 8.6 percent growth and a 14.6 percent total net sales growth.”

“We remain focused on our store network expansion, especially with this very encouraging first quarter results. We are on track to achieve our 100-strong branch network by the end of 2025 goal. We opened our 74th branch in March and we will be opening seven more this year. We are hoping that the return to our pre-pandemic growth path will continue unhampered,” Belo-Cincochan said.

Wilcon’s depot format stores’ sales accounted for 97.5 percent of total net sales, growing by 15.0 percent to P7.460 billion with a comparable sales growth of 8.8 percent.

The contribution of the smaller format “Home Essentials” to total net sales meanwhile declined to 1.8 percent, totaling P138 million, a 1.3 percent or P2 million drop year-on-year. Project sales contributed the balance of P53 million, increasing by 11.3 percent or P5 million year-on-year.

Gross profit of P2.93 billion grew 21.1 percent or P510 million year-on-year in view of higher sales and gross profit margin expansion by 200 bps to 38.3 percent in view of the improvement in the gross profit margin rates of both the exclusive and non-exclusive products and the increased contribution to total net sales of the higher-margin exclusive and in-house brands to 51.2 percent from 49.4 percent in the same period in 2021.

Operating expenses increased to P1.77 billion, up 13.8 percent year-on-year attributable mainly to expansion-related expenses particularly in outsourced services, trucking, utilities, salaries, depreciation and amortization. Including lease-related interest expense considered rent expense, total operating expenses totaled P1.89 billion.

Operations related other income amounted to P84 million, up 42.7 percent or P25 million year-on-year due to increased collection of supplier support and delivery fees in view of the higher volume of business.

Non-operating other income, comprised of interest income and foreign exchange gains dropped to P3 million from P10 million due to lower investible funds.