December 6, 2015 11:18 pm by RITCHIE A. HORARIO
DISTRIBUTION giant
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is optimistic that it will meet this year’s
profit guidance of P18.5 billion.
“Certainly, in terms
of meeting its guidance number for the full year, there’s a good chance that
number can be met,” Meralco Chairman Manuel Pangilinan said over the weekend.
“Surprisingly, the
volume of power sold has risen starting May this year, such that the
year-to-date is 5-percent growth,” he added.
This, Pangilinan
said, is “slightly ahead of expectations.”
“This is ahead of
what historic growth rate of power sold by Meralco has been which is typically
around three percent.”
Meralco’s
consolidated energy sales volume reached 17,753 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the
first semester, boosted by an all-time high of 3,441 GWh in June.
Commercial sales grew
the strongest, posting a four percent increase with real estate, hotels and
restaurants and trade driving growth.
Residential sales,
meanwhile, grew by three percent as per capita consumption among the mid to low
customer segments increased.
The company’s
customer count rose to 5.68 million as of end-June from 5.48 million a year
ago.
Meralco’s P18.5
billion profit guidance is higher than its actual core income of P18.1 billion
last year.
The firm reported
P11.75 billion in net income for the first semester, up 21.9 percent from P9.64
billion a year ago.
Core net income –
which excludes one-time gains and losses – improved by 17.9 percent to P11.64
billion.
No comments:
Post a Comment