Jollibee resumes operations in China

Fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. has opened a new outlet in China – its first after a six-year hiatus.

In a statement, Jollibee said the store, located in Jia Ning Na Mall Ren Min Nan Road Shenzhen City, is owned by its offshore subsidiary Kuai Le Feng.

Jollibee previously had a franchised branch in Xiamen from 1998 to 2002.

As of end-February this year, the Jollibee Group had a total of 1,645 stores worldwide, 1,385 of which are in the Philippines.

The local outlets consist of 625 Jollibee stores, Chowking (376), Greenwich (237), Red Ribbon (192), Delifrance (27) and Manong Pepe (2).

Overseas, the group had 186 stores – Yonghe King in China (102), Chun Shui Tang (1) also in China, Jollibee in the US (14), Red Ribbon in the US (22), Chowking in the US (12), Chowking in Dubai (9), Chowking in Indonesia (5) and 21 Jollibee stores in other countries.

Jollibee posted a net profit of P2.36 billion last year, up 9.26 percent from 2006 due to new store openings and higher sales. System-wide sales rose 14 percent to P51.55 billion, driven by the strong performance of most of its brands and a hefty 19.6-percent growth in sales from overseas operations.

System-wide sales is a measure of all sales to consumers, both from company-owned and franchised stores.

Revenues increased 12.74 percent to P38.67 billion from P34.3 billion.

In the fourth quarter of 2007, however, Jollibee’s net income fell 15.7 percent to P550 million owing to accounting adjustments of P115 million after tax consisting of various expense items that will be made part of the yearend audit.

Also contributing to the drop in fourth quarter earnings were higher prices of raw materials particularly milk, cheese, cooking oil and flour.

Consolidated cost of sales in relation to its revenues increased from 44.6 percent in 2006 to 46.9 percent in 2007 while its general and administrative expenses decreased from 44.8 percent to 42.4 percent.