SINGAPORE: Thai Beverage posted declines in both full-year earnings and revenue following a change in the fiscal year starting date, which resulted in a shorter period under review.
For its first fiscal year – from Jan 1 to Sept 30 – net profit came in at 18.9 billion baht (S$757 million), down 29 per cent from 26.5 billion baht in the 12 months to Dec 31 last year.
Turnover fell by 19 per cent to 139.2 billion baht, the firm reported yesterday. However, when compared with the corresponding period last year, ThaiBev said revenue was up by 14.8 per cent from the 121.2 billion baht garnered from January to September last year.
The increase in turnover was mainly due to higher sales in its spirits, beer, non-alcoholic beverages and food business.
Revenue in the spirits division rose 0.1 per cent to 76.6 billion baht, while turnover for the beer segment surged 62.3 per cent to 44.4 billion baht.
“The success of new Chang beer as well as continuous and effective marketing efforts resulted in a 54.5 per cent increase in beer sales volume,” ThaiBev said in the stock exchange filing. It added that a decrease in raw material costs helped boost earnings of its beer business by 280 per cent to 2.8 billion baht when compared with the corresponding nine months last year.
Sales of non-alcoholic beverages rose 6.8 per cent to 13.3 billion baht, largely driven by higher turnover of drinking water, carbonated soft drinks, ready-to-drink tea and Jub Jai herbal tea.
The higher revenue and “favourable packaging costs and a decrease in finance costs” have helped to narrow the net loss in the non-alcoholic beverages segment, the firm added. Revenue from the food business, meanwhile, climbed by 1.4 per cent to about 5 billion baht, owing to the inclusion of contributions from Food of Asia.
ThaiBev said turnover in its international business declined by 10.5 per cent compared with the previous year, due to a drop in sales revenue of beer and spirits.
“The negative growth in beer was mainly due to the slowdown in Asea.
