Jollibee Group confident on exceeding 2023 sales, earnings targets

Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) is optimistic on surpassing its sales and profit targets for the entire year on the back of strong domestic and overseas performance in the first half of the year.

At a virtual media briefing on Tuesday, JFC chief financial officer Richard Shin said that during the first six months of 2023, “system wide sales and same store sales are outside of the higher end of the guidance.”

“Operating income is ahead of guidance as well,” Shin said.

For 2023, JFC is targeting system wide sales growth of 15% to 20% and same store sales growth of 7% to 10%.

Operating income is targeted to grow by 20% to 25%.

During the January to June period, system wide sales, a measure of all sales to consumers both from company owned and franchised stores, increased by 23.3% while same store sales rose by 15.1%.

Operating income, meanwhile, surged by 50.7% to P15.886 billion.

“So, for the rest of the year, we believe that we’ll not only deliver to guidance, but likely exceed,” Shin said.

However, JFC’s net income during the first semester of 2023 declined by 5.9% to P4.694 billion from P4.990 billion.

Shin explained that the decline was due to the absence of a one-off gain from sale of land properties during the second quarter of 2022.

“So, if you extract that out and look at a normalized business, meaning, what does our business really look like without these one off land sale gains, because we won't be having those every year,” he said.

“Then I'm referring now to the operating income line, which sits above and the operating income line is the one that grew over 50%,” he added.

Shin said that the company's “optimism really comes from the fact that we are growing the top line on a steady basis.”

At the end of June 2023, JFC’s store network increased by 5.1% year-on-year.

JFC operated 6,617 stores worldwide, of which 3,287 are in the Philippines and 3,330 are overseas —511 in China, 389 in North America, 340 in EMEA, 673 with Highlands Coffee mainly in Vietnam, 1,117 with CBTL, and 300 with Milksha.

Its largest brands by store outlets worldwide are Jollibee with 1,609, CBTL 1,117, Chowking 613, Highlands Coffee 673, and Mang Inasal 569.

For the entire year, JFC is targeting to increase its store net network by at least 5% year-on-year.—AOL, GMA Integrated News