Lucio Co’s Puregold Price Club, Inc., one of the country’s top grocery retail leaders, reported a three percent improvement in consolidated net income to P2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2024 from the P2.4 billion earned in the same period last year.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said consolidated revenue grew 6.7 percent to P47.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024 from P44.4 billion in the same period of 2023.
In the first quarter of 2024, the enterprise experienced positive same store sales growth (SSSG) of 1.5 percent from Puregold stores and -1.2 percent from S&R Warehouse clubs driven primarily from higher traffic.
“SSSG trends continued to normalize starting in the second quarter of 2023 as consumer revenge spending has plateaued. The company continues to see a buoyant trajectory in topline growth for the year 2024,” the firm said.
Puregold said its topline growth was partly offset by decline in margins primarily due to the aggressive store expansion, slight gross margin compression to remain competitive and grow market share.
For the period ended March 31, 2024, the Group realized an increase of 8.6 percent in consolidated gross profit to P9.26 billion at 19.6 percent margin from P8.52 billion at 19.2 percent margin in the same period of 2023.
Other operating income decreased by 2.0 percent from P762 million in the three months of 2023 to P747 million in the same period of 2024.
Gross operating income for the first three months of 2024 amounted to Pl0 billion at a gross operating margin of 21.1 percent and an increase of 7.7 percent from P9.28 billion at 20.9 percent margin in the same period of 2023.
As of end December 2023, PGOLD opened 37 new Puregold stores, 4 S&R Membership Shopping Warehouse and 3 S&R New York Style QSR.
The group had a total of 568 stores nationwide. These include 488 Puregold stores, 26 S&R Membership Shopping Warehouses, and 54 S&R New York Style QSRs.