Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC), one of Asia’s largest food service companies, registered a 351.7 percent surge in attributable net income to P5.1 billion in the first half of 2022 from the P1.13 billion earned in the same period last year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said system wide sales, which is a measure of all sales to consumers both from company-owned and franchised stores, rose 35.4 percent to P133.13 billion in the first semester of the year from P98.3 billion in the comparative period of 2021.

With this, revenues grew 33 percent to P94.91 billion from P71.37 billion in the first six months last year.

For the second quarter alone, attributable net income reached P2.8 billion, almost a three-fold increase over the P976 million it earned in the same period last year.

Jollibee reported record-high system wide sales of P73.1 billion in the second quarter, 44.8 percent higher than the comparative period of 2021, driven by 32.6 percent same store sales growth, 7.2 percent from new stores and new acquisition and 5.0 percent favorable foreign currency translation.

Revenues grew by 41.9 percent to P52.1 billion as same store sales for the Philippine business increased by 51.5 percent in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same quarter last year.

Practically all brands registered strong double-digit growth as demand bounced back with the easing of Covid-related restrictions in many parts of the country.

The international business grew by 6.9 percent despite a 29.5 percent decline in the China business’ same store sales growth due to COVID-related restrictions.

North America posted a growth of 7.5 percent, Europe/Middle East/other parts of Asia (EMEAA) 14.0 percent, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® (CBTL) 16.3 percent, and SuperFoods 50.7 percent.

“We are pleased with our strong top line growth led by our Philippine business which delivered better-than-expected sales for the second quarter and got back to its pre-pandemic sales level,” said JFC Group Chief Executive Officer Ernesto Tanmantiong.

He added that, “We are encouraged to see further improvement in dine-in sales while at the same time sustaining growth in our delivery business.”

“Outside the Philippines, our China business saw double-digit decline in sales as our restaurants particularly in Shanghai were closed temporarily for most of the quarter due to heightened Covid-related restrictions,” Tanmantiong said.

He noted that, “The softness in China’s sales was however, offset by other international markets, such as North America and EMEAA particularly Vietnam (up 50.9 percent for Jollibee and SuperFoods), which continued to grow well with robust same store sales growth.”

“We are very confident about the strong recovery of our China business in the months ahead, faster sales and profit growth of our other businesses abroad and sustained strong growth of our Philippine business,” he said.