Philippine: San Miguel Corp., the country’s largest food and beverage conglomerate, is expecting to post double-digit growth in beer sales volume in the first quarter of the year. San Miguel’s optimism stems from the 30-percent growth of beer sales volume of more than 30 million cases in January and February this year, which translated to more than P6 billion in sales revenues. The strong growth in the first few months of 2004 is well above San Miguel’s expectations, since volume traditionally dips after the holiday season.

“It is foreseen that the beer volumes will increase at a double-digit pace for the first quarter due to favorable sales trending and strong product off-take. The first and third quarters are normally slow periods but the trending is very positive,” the company said in a statement.

Last year, San Miguel saw its sales volume grow by 12 percent versus the previous year. San Miguel attributed the strong beer sales to its distribution network and improved marketing efforts. While sales volume increased in all selling areas, there were higher growth rates for Visayas and Mindanao. As a result of the high operating leverage, San Miguel said income from operations should significantly swell due to vigorous volumes. Between January and February, the company posted 29-percent higher operating income at P1.35 billion as compared with the same period in 2003.

Net income grew by 16 percent to P1.06 billion in the first two months of the year, versus P918 million in 2003. This was attributed to the domestic beverage business, particularly beer sales. San Miguel earlier said the company is well positioned to take advantage of additional consumer- spending this year, given the elections. C. Garcia

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