Napocor, Meralco lead top grossers for 2000

The list of the country’s top 10 revenue earners among corporations remained the same last year – save for a minor shift in rankings – with the two power companies National Power Corp. and Manila Electric Co. lording over the field.

With sales both breaching the P100-billion mark, Napocor and Meralco continued to dominate and firm up their No. 1 and 2 rankings, respectively, for the year 2000, according to a preliminary report by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The soon-to-be privatized Napocor generated total sales of P118.652 billion, almost 20 percent more than the P99.158 billion revenue record in 1999. The Lopez-controlled Meralco, meanwhile, posted sales of P104.04 billion, a more substantial 22 percent gain compared with sales of P85.5 billion in 1999.

The US-based electronics giant Texas Instruments (Philippines) Inc. took third place, backed by its increased export shipments, with revenues of P94.842 billion, overtaking Petron Corp. which landed fourth on total revenues of P87.968 billion.

The two other oil giants, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Caltex (Philippines), Inc, trailed Petron with revenues of P80.541 billion and P52.066 billion, respectively. Although Caltex had lower revenues, it moved up a notch higher from seventh place to sixth while Shell stayed at the fifth spot.

Japan’s Fujitsu Computer Products Corp. of the Philippines also moved one place higher to seventh with sales of P49.449 billion last year while local telecoms giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) slipped two rungs to land at eight place, ringing in sales of P44.27 billion.

Rounding up the 10 top sales earners were local food and beverage conglomerate San Miguel Corp. and its multinational counterpart Nestle Philippines Inc. with respective revenues of P40.3 billion and P39 billion.

The next 10 revenue leaders were a more diverse mix of companies in electronics, banking, pharmaceutical, food, beverage, tobacco and telecom industries. Netherlands’ Philips Semiconductors Philippines Inc. made a big leap from No. 22 to No. 11 as its revenues reached P37.568 billion while another foreign IT company, Taiwan’s Acer Information Products (Philippines) Inc. slightly dropped from No. 11 to No. 12 on revenues of P36.265 billion.

A major mover last year was Globe Telecom, whose revenue base of P20.369 billion enabled it to leap 27 places from No. 46 to 19, boosted by the heavy subscription of its cellular telephone service. Its sister company, Bank of the Philippine Islands, also moved into the top 20 circle from No. 24 to No. 15 with revenues of P29.06 billion.

The rest of the 20 top revenue earners were Metropolitan Bank (No. 13); Zuellig Pharma (No. 14); Mercury Drug (No. 16); Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines (No. 17); National Food Authority (No. 18); and Fortune Tobacco Corp. (No. 20).