AllHome Corp., the Villar Group’s listed retail arm, said its income in the first half reached P222.11 million, down 65 percent from the previous year’s P640.96 million.
The company recorded sales of P6.26 billion for the period, 7 percent down from the previous year’s P6.72 billion, mainly as a result of the decline in foot traffic due to the Covid-19 Omicron infection surge in the early part of the year, it said.
Despite the improvement in foot traffic, sales declined due to lost sales from three Alabang stores and weakened sales in the hard categories, the company said in its report.
On January 8, the company’s store outlets in Alabang, Muntinlupa City, were burned down when fire struck the entire Starmall Alabang.
The estimated losses on inventory and property and equipment amounted to P83.8 million and P219.3 million, respectively. As of the date of issuance of the financial statements, insurance claims are in process and are expected to be settled within the year, the company said.
“The country at large has successfully demonstrated and sustained its optimism in the post-pandemic scenario. The return to normalcy—as can be seen in the consistent pandemic alert levels and the brisk increases in footfall to malls and centers of commerce,” said AllHome Chairman Manuel B. Villar Jr.
“While AllHome still continues to feel the effects of prevailing circumstances in the country, our current performance still shows marked improvement over pre-pandemic levels of 2019, and is an increasingly tangible and welcome sign that things are only going to improve for AllHome. People are returning to stores and spending more, and we fully intend to capitalize on this sustained optimism.”
A notable trend observed by regional thinktank Euromonitor during the pandemic was the migration from urban city centers to the countryside, with consumers—including the upper class—seeking space further from identified centers of activity, shifting their sights on rest houses and holiday homes away from the city.
“The shift of home building and making away from the city, a trend identified by Euromonitor International in its February 2022 report on consumer trends—especially in the home improvement and home and garden industries—is something we have paid close attention to in our expansion strategy,” Camille Villar, the company’s vice chairman, said.
“Part of the AllHome experience of elevated customer journeys is making it accessible where our customers are—or want to be. This trend has informed our strategy of locating not only in the country’s historically urbanized centers, but in the emerging ones as well that still give the flavor of the more relaxed Philippine countryside. This can be seen in our latest location in Davao, and soon, in Cebu.”
AllHome adds five locations, as it move towards 100-store milestone by 2026
The company said basket sizes in AllHome stores are up 5 percent versus the same period last year—an indicator that its customers continue to be confident in their spending.
AllDay’s performance
AllDay Marts Inc., the operator of AllDay supermarket, said its income in January to June reached P11.6 million, or just a fraction of the P179.6 million it earned last year.
The decline was partly due to the fire that burned down one of its stores in Alabang, Muntinlupa earlier this year.