MANILA, Philippines — Home improvement and finishing construction supply retailer Wilcon Depot Inc. is set to spend as much as P3.2 billion this year as the company gears up for its return to growth.
Wilcon president Lorraine Belo-Cincochan said the company is looking forward to going back to its growth path with the improvements implemented in terms of improving sales and increasing cost efficiency.
“It’s been a challenging year, challenging times, but as always, we are very optimistic. We have, of course, our growth targets. We still want to grow and we still want to be here and continue to generate employment for the communities where we are in. Of course, we really give the Filipinos the best value,” Belo-Cincochan said in a briefing yesterday.
“We hope that it will be better times, the second half, and then maybe in the next year, things will be better for our company and also, of course, for the Philippines as a whole,” she said.
While the company is looking forward to turning around its 2024 results this year and going back to its growth path in the succeeding years, Wilcon senior executive vice president and chief operating officer Rosemarie Bosch-Ong said the company remains conservative in its growth estimates for the year.
“The first quarter’s not really that good. I mean, we’re still experiencing the different headwinds that we’ve experienced in the past year. But in the coming months, we’re looking at a very good showing, especially toward the end of May, right after the election. And hopefully, it will continue until June,” Ong said.
“We’re still looking at growth, but as again, it’s gonna be conservative. We’re looking at the single-digit growth on the top line. Probably a little higher than the mid-single digit,” she said.
In terms of profit, Wilcon vice president for investor relations Mary Jean Alger said the company is looking at very minimal growth for 2025, with a positive turnaround expected in the second half.
“On the earnings side, we’re just looking at recovering the decline we had in the first quarter. So we’re just looking at getting it even. And maybe if the sales really pick up some more, then we have just flattish to a very low growth in the earnings if the impact can be felt in the second quarter,” she said.
The company’s earnings fell by 27.5 percent to P536 million in the first quarter due to lower gross profit and higher operating expenses.
This year, the company has set aside a capital expenditure budget of P3.2 billion. Of the amount, the majority, or P2.2 billion, is allocated for new stores and warehouse. At the same time, the rest will be used for renovations and repairs, store and transportation equipment, and IT infrastructure.
Belo-Cincochan said that changes in the store organization, systems and processes will continue improving customer experience while strengthening check-and-balance systems more efficiently.
“We’ve been doing some internal reviews and, of course, actions on reviewing costs. We’re doing a bit of a reorganization in fine-tuning also the way the organization is structured within the store so that we can, of course, better serve the customer, better provide customer service, and at the same time, be more efficient in delivering the service that we need to provide to our existing customers,” Belo-Cincochan said.
“And also the other one is we are looking to rightsize some stores that may be a bit large in certain areas where perhaps we have already a few branches that are already existing and that we need to review the size of the stores and subsequently, inventory, space and all the expenses that are associated with it. So hopefully, we can make some more optimized spending in that respect,” she said.
Wilcon plans to open eight new stores, a mix of small and medium formats, this year.
With the opening of a branch in Lubao, Pampanga in December last year, Wilcon achieved its 100th store milestone a year ahead of its 2025 target.