PTT Philippines is setting aside P500 million next year to further strengthen its presence in the country.
The amount will be spent to put up 30 new gasoline stations and 12 company-owned coffee chain Café Anazon in Luzon.
PTT now has 120 stations in the Philippines, 15 of which are in Metro Manila and the rest in other regions in Luzon. In the Visayas, PTT has 15 stations. By end of the year, the oil firm would have put up six Café Amazon stores.
“We remain confident on the business climate in the Philippines,” PTT Philippines President and CEO Sukanya Seriyothin said. “That’s why from the 20 stations that we targeted this 2017, which we actually exceeded, we are targeting more than 30 stations next year.”
The budget for next year’s expansion is part of PTT Philippines’s P5-billion capital-expenditure plan for five years.
Following its diversification into the coffee business, PTT started investing in the Philippines to complement its more than 1,850 stores in Thailand and in other parts of Asia, including one in Japan.
PTT opened its first Café Amazon in the Philippines in the last quarter of 2016 at PTT’s largest service station, the 2-hectare PTT SCTEx.
Marketing Director Thitiroj Rergsumran said that by end of this year the company will have a total of six stores that are fully operational.
“After SCTEX, we opened this year our stores at PTT Dasmarinas, Cavite and at SM North Edsa,” Rergsumran said adding the company is opening this month one store each at Edsa Veterans in Quezon City, Pulilan, Bulacan and Lubao, Pampanga.
Its SM North EDSA branch is Café Amazon’s first store in the Philippines outside its gasoline station and its first inside the mall in the country.
While PTT offers a partnership deal through dealership for its gasoline station, it opened its Café Amazon to franchising with an initial investment of P4 million to 6 million.
The oil firm is also expecting to end the year with up to P22 billion in revenue. For next year, PTT may report P28 billion revenues.