Meralco core income up 7.3% to P16.7-B in 9 months
Published Oct 29, 2018 12:00 am
By Myrna M. Velasco
Owing to overall sales growth of 4.8 percent in the first three quarters, the core income of power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) climbed 7.3 percent to P16.68 billion over January to September stretch from the year-ago level of P15.37 billion.
Oscar S. Reyes
Its reported net income had also been on heftier uptrend of 14 percent to P18.2 billion in the nine-month period from P15.7 billion last year.
The company’s three-quarter financial performance yielded core earnings per share amounting to P14.804; while reported earnings per share had been at P16.159 per share.
Overall revenues had been up 6.0 percent to P221.3 billion from the comparative P214.39 billion in the same three quarters for 2017; and such had been mainly attributed to “significantly higher generation charges resulting from the combined effects of increased prices of coal, oil and gas; and the further depreciation of the Philippine peso versus the US dollar.”
Company executives noted that “September 2018 year-to-date operating results have remained generally positive, although the overall growth rate slowed down during the third quarter.”
But as reckoned by Meralco President Oscar S. Reyes, despite the crunch in sales in the last quarter, that had been well compensated by the brisk sales that the distribution company had logged in the first months of the year.
Sales in August in particular, he said, had been on unprecedented dip – with demand growth just registering 0.5 percent rise; while September was still relatively low with 2.5 percent volume growth.
“What used to be fairly high had been trending downwards,” he stressed, referring to the sluggish demand in recent months – mainly due to cooler temperatures and what had been perceived as battered pockets of the Filipino consumers due to escalating basic commodity prices.
While there had been continued climb in the energy sales volumes for industrial and commercial end-users, Meralco noted that sales to residential customers posted negative growth, especially in July this year.
“Residential volumes registered a negative growth of 1.0-percent for the month of July 2018, the first such decline recorded,” the utility firm said.
It reckoned that such may be attributed “to the impact of higher inflation, interest rates and a weaker peso, which adversely affected consumer spending.”
Meralco added “this negative growth continued in the months of August and September, but the declines were partly offset by increases in both commercial and industrial volumes at 2.0-percent and 6.0-percent, respectively.”
The trends in the third quarter, according to Reyes, shall be something that the company will continually re-assess, especially on weather report of mild El Nino in the last months of the year.
Oscar S. Reyes
Its reported net income had also been on heftier uptrend of 14 percent to P18.2 billion in the nine-month period from P15.7 billion last year.
The company’s three-quarter financial performance yielded core earnings per share amounting to P14.804; while reported earnings per share had been at P16.159 per share.
Overall revenues had been up 6.0 percent to P221.3 billion from the comparative P214.39 billion in the same three quarters for 2017; and such had been mainly attributed to “significantly higher generation charges resulting from the combined effects of increased prices of coal, oil and gas; and the further depreciation of the Philippine peso versus the US dollar.”
Company executives noted that “September 2018 year-to-date operating results have remained generally positive, although the overall growth rate slowed down during the third quarter.”
But as reckoned by Meralco President Oscar S. Reyes, despite the crunch in sales in the last quarter, that had been well compensated by the brisk sales that the distribution company had logged in the first months of the year.
Sales in August in particular, he said, had been on unprecedented dip – with demand growth just registering 0.5 percent rise; while September was still relatively low with 2.5 percent volume growth.
“What used to be fairly high had been trending downwards,” he stressed, referring to the sluggish demand in recent months – mainly due to cooler temperatures and what had been perceived as battered pockets of the Filipino consumers due to escalating basic commodity prices.
While there had been continued climb in the energy sales volumes for industrial and commercial end-users, Meralco noted that sales to residential customers posted negative growth, especially in July this year.
“Residential volumes registered a negative growth of 1.0-percent for the month of July 2018, the first such decline recorded,” the utility firm said.
It reckoned that such may be attributed “to the impact of higher inflation, interest rates and a weaker peso, which adversely affected consumer spending.”
Meralco added “this negative growth continued in the months of August and September, but the declines were partly offset by increases in both commercial and industrial volumes at 2.0-percent and 6.0-percent, respectively.”
The trends in the third quarter, according to Reyes, shall be something that the company will continually re-assess, especially on weather report of mild El Nino in the last months of the year.