(The Philippine Star) | Updated November 27, 2017 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines —
Power distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) expects softer growth in sales
in 2018 after an unusually strong performance in the past two years, its top
official said.
Meralco president Oscar
Reyes said management still sees strong growth potential next year, but not as
much as what the power distributor registered in the past two years.
“We’ve had relatively
strong performance in 2016, 2017. We have to take it with context of high base
in the past 24 months. We’re still calling for potential growth, let’s say 3.5
percent,” he said.
In 2016, energy sales
went up 8.1 percent to 40,142 gigawatt-hours (gwh), which was beyond the power
distributor’s estimates. This was driven by the El Niño phenomenon and
election-related activities.
Despite coming from a
high base, energy sales volume this year are expected to remain strong, albeit
lower compared to the previous year, as demand continued to pick up in its
franchise area.
“It’s been a slow start
in the first three months. For the year, we are still seeing mid-four percent.
We’re at 4.5 percent year-to-date as of end-October,” Reyes said.
Factors that dampened
sales are the adoption of energy efficient measures by customers and the
installation of solar rooftops within Meralco’s franchise area.
In 2015, Meralco saw
solar-powered rooftops as a big threat to its traditional distribution
business, which counts over 5.7 million customers within its franchise area in
2015.
This year, Meralco is
looking to slightly surpass its core profit last year as the surprise surge in
sales will be tempered by the intense retail competition and ongoing
developments in its power generation business.
Last year, it booked a
core net income of P19.58 billion and a net income of P19.18 billion.
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