SINGAPORE (Nov 27): Thai Beverage reported FY18 earnings of THB 18.53 billion ($77 million), down 46% from last year.
The F&B group saw tough domestic alcoholic beverage market amid challenging economic conditions and cautious consumers pending, especially among lower income consumers.
This was exacerbated by the high base effect of higher agent sales in Sep 17 as they were positioning for an excise tax hike.
Revenue from sale of goods and services rendered rose 21% to THB 229.7 billion from a year ago due to a 64.8% increase in sales of beer and 96.8% in sales of food.
The spirits business saw a 17% decrease in attributable profit to nearly THB 17 billion due to lower domestic purchasing power and higher purchase orders from agents and retailers before the excise tax increase.
Sales revenue from spirits came in at THB 105.9 billion, a decrease of 3.1%. Total sales volume of spirits including MSC & MDC’s spirits was 612.4 million litres, an increase of 1.2%.
The beer business saw a 53% decrease in attributable profit to THB 1.5 billion on higher advertising and promotion expenses although this was offset by to contribution from beer sales from Sabeco.
Attributable loss from non-alcoholic beverages widened 33.1% to THB 1.3 billion as sales fell 3.5% to THB 16.2 billion.
Attributable profit from food business surged sevenfold to THB 521 million, driven by sales contributions from Spice of Asia and The QSR of Asia which operates the KFC outlets.
Attributable profit from F&N and Frasers Property fell 71.4% to THB 3.4 billion on absence of recognition of fair valuation gains on financial assets of THB 8.5 billion in FY17.
ThaiBev has declared a final dividend of THB 0.24 per share, bringing total dividends for FY18 to THB 0.39 per share, down from THB 0.67 in FY17.
The counter closed 2.29% higher at $0.67 on Monday before the results were announced.
