Meralco seen to end year with P23 billion in net income

THE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is expected to end the year with over P23 billion in net income after it reported on Monday a consolidated net income of P6.31 billion in the third quarter, bringing its nine-month profit to P18.5 billion at end-September this year.

For the past nine months, Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said the country’s largest power distribution utility had performed responsively in respect of its franchise mandate to provide power at least cost, while maintaining highly reliable and resilient facilities.

“As indicated, it is quite likely the full-year profitability on core business will be north of P23 billion…. It is likely we will achieve the P23 billion plus profit for full year 2019. It will probably be above P23 billion,” Pangilinan said at a press conference on Meralco’s financial and operating results for the nine months ended September this year.

In 2018, the country’s largest power distribution firm posted P22.4 billion in core profit and P23.1 billion in consolidated net income. The numbers are higher compared to 2017.

From July to September this year, Meralco posted core profit of P6.136 billion and P76.173 billion in revenues.

Its nine-month core profit hit P18.5 billion, 11 percent higher than last year’s P16.7 billion. Revenues also went up by 6 percent to P241.126 billion at end-September this year, from P227.411 billion in the same period last year.

During the nine months, sales volume grew by 6.3 percent to 35,005 gigawatt hours (GWh) while customer count increased by 4.2 percent to 6.82 million.

Residential energy sales, which accounted for 31 percent of the total consolidated energy sales volume, grew strongest at 8 percent, followed by commercial energy sales volume growing at 6 percent, with a 39-percent share of the total sales volume.

Meralco President Ray Espinosa said that gleaned in the last five comparative nine-month period is the shift between the second and third quarter in terms of highest sales volume, which reflects variability due to either temperature in the second quarter, frequency and extent of weather disturbances, or manufacturers beginning to ramp up production to stock up in the third quarter in preparation for the holiday sales.

The company is anticipating sustained growth resulting from the country’s continued overall economic expansion, as well as growth that will follow the government’s ongoing infrastructure development program.

“There is no doubt that there will be significant domestic economic expansion with the expected improvement in government public investments in the coming months, in addition to the inflow from remittance of our overseas Filipino workers,” said Pangilinan, while adding that manageable inflation and increased liquidity in the financial system provides opportunities for growth across all customer segments.

Capital expenditure (capex) at end-September amounted to P15.7 billion.