Manila Electric Co., the country’s largest power retailer, expects to surpass its P11-billion core net income target this year due to higher sales and volume growth, chief finance officer Betty Siy-Yap told reporters Tuesday.
“Yes, we’re on track on P11 billion. We do expect that we will surpass it by a little bit,” Siy-Yap said after a hearing of the Committee on Energy at the House of Representatives.
Siy-Yap said Meralco sales volume grew 11 percent in August compared with a 4-percent expansion in August.
“That [growth] will be tempered as we go to the end of the year because of the lower number of days in December due to the holidays,” Siy-Yap said.
Siy-Yap said the industrial sector drove the higher sales volume this year as the sector slowly recovered from the US economic slump.
“I go back to 2008 where the volume was very low. Even through 2009, it wasn’t really much but you’ll see semiconductors coming in [this year]. The services, commercial and residential sectors contributed to the growth,” she said.
The official said Meralco’s sales volume usually goes down toward the last quarter of the year due to cooler weather.
“We [also] had a rate adjustment in April. It was supposed to be January but it took effect April this year,” she said.
The Energy Regulatory Commission allowed Meralco to increase rates by an average of P0.2690 per kilowatt-hour for the distribution, supply and metering charges in April as part of the performance-based rate setting scheme.
Meralco president and chief executive Manuel Pangilinan said in May that the company expected to hit a core net income of P11 billion this year, up 57 percent from P7 billion in 2009, due to the recovery of the industrial sector and the rate increase approved in April.
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