Pryce Corporation reported a 15.6 percent growth in aggregate net income during the first half of 2023 to P819.68 million from net earnings of of P708.78 million in the same period last year. In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said its first half consolidated revenues, however, dipped by 3.2 percent to this year’s P9.58 billion from last year’s revenue of P9.91 billion. LPG (cooking gas) sales volume grew by 8.9% percent. Net income increased mainly due to the improvement of margins in LPG as Luzon households started switching to branded LPG. Operating expenses went up this year, which was brought about by inflation and increases in cost of logistics, salaries & wages, fuel, and other items. The dip in consolidated revenues is due to the 26.1 percent drop in the average contract price (CP), from $827.92 per metric ton of the previous year to this year’s $611.75 per metric ton. Although there was an 8.9 percent growth in LPG sales volume, this growth was not enough to offset the effect of the drop in CP. On contributions to consolidated revenues, the business segments of the company contributed as follows: LPG business contributed P9.04 billion or 94.3 percent; industrial gas products pitched in P392.3 million or 4.1 percent; real estate and pharmaceuticals accounted for P149.7 million or 1.6 percent. Earnings per share (EPS) of the company grew by 16.5 percent from P0.3391 to P0.3951. The greater increase in EPS, compared to the company’s net income, is due to the lower number of outstanding shares as a result of the company’s continuous buyback of its shares over the past four years.