Although business was “very bad” in the last few months because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC) said it plans to open an additional 338 stores worldwide this year.
In a statement issued on August 5, 2020, JFC said it will introduce new stores in selected locations particularly in North America, Vietnam, Malaysia and China.
It will also introduce new products, launch new marketing campaigns, open cloud kitchens, and introduce improvements in its delivery systems.
From April to June 2020, JFC said its system-wide sales decreased by 48.4% to P30.7 billion in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same quarter in 2019 while same store sales went down by 41%.
This includes sales from company-owned and franchised stores.
The company said it “felt the full impact of government restrictions intended to contain the COVID-19 pandemic” in the second quarter.
Governments worldwide imposed lockdowns on key cities as a measure against COVID-19, causing the global economy to almost grind to a halt.
In the Philippines, around two-thirds of the local government units declared lockdowns in April and May, following the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine that was declared in mid-March.
Jollibee said half, or 50%, of JFC Group’s stores worldwide were temporarily closed at the beginning of the second quarter.
But by the end of the quarter - April to June - 88% of all stores, or roughly nine of every 10 stores, were already open.
Most of the stores that were open, however, relied heavily on delivery and take-out businesses.
Dine-in operations were either still closed or had low level of sales volume.
As a result, revenues decreased by 46.6% to P23.3 billion for the quarter versus a year ago.
“The business results were very bad but in line with our forecasts. We are now focusing on rebuilding our business moving forward along with implementing major cost improvement under our Business Transformation program,” said JFC chief executive officer Ernesto Tanmantiong.
But he said the company expects sales and profit to improve over the next few months and further in 2021 and 2022.
“We expect sales and profit to increase significantly in 2021 to a point closer to the levels of 2019 and to grow at least at historical growth rate of 15% annually by 2022,” Tanmantiong added.
As of June 30, 2020, JFC was operating 3,286 restaurant outlets in the country, including 1,201 under the Jollibee brand. (Ventures Cebu)
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