Jollibee back to black in Q3 as digital boost pays off

MANILA, Philippines — Fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. reversed last year’s losses to return to black in the third quarter as its costly business transformation program pays off, although the company was still short of where it was before the pandemic hit.

Net income amounted to P1.57 billion in the July-September period, a turnaround from P1.58 billion net loss recorded in the same period last year, the company said in a disclosure to the stock exchange on Tuesday.

This brought Jollibee’s nine-month earnings to P2.7 billion, a reversal from P13.5 billion losses a year ago when strict mobility curbs shut down many of the company’s stores and sapped dine-in sales, once a major source of revenues. But Jollibee’s year-to-date net income was 6.1% lower compared with its bottom-line in the same period in 2019, or before the pandemic struck.

Explaining its latest financial performance, the company behind the world-famous Chickenjoy said it is now reaping the fruits of its P7-billion “business transformation program”. The multi-billion-peso revamp saw Jollibee beefing up its delivery services and closing down bad-performing stores to adapt to a challenging environment brought by the pandemic. Broken down, a total of 221 stores were permanently closed in the third quarter: 63 in the Philippines and 158 abroad.

And there are some signs of recovery. System-wide sales — a measure of all sales to consumers, both from company-owned and franchised stores — grew 26.6% year-on-year last quarter to P51.4 billion, while the nine-month figure jumped at an annualized rate of 18.4% to P149.7 billion.

Revenues went up 24.1% year-on-year to P37.2 billion last quarter, figures showed, bringing the January-September topline to P108.6 billion, up 17.1% on an annual basis. Jollibee’s same store sales in the Philippines increased 32.4% on-year in the third quarter while its international business grew by 12.4% annually.

At the same time, Jollibee made big-ticket moves in the past months. The company acquired Milksha, a Taiwanese bubble tea maker, and is planning to expand Japanese fast-food brand Yoshinoya in the Philippines. 

On Tuesday, shares in Jollibee rallied 2.9% to finish trading at P255.8 apiece.