Riyadh – Mubasher: Almarai Co, a Saudi-based leading food and beverage company, reported an 8.47% year-on-year decline in net profit after zakat and tax for the third quarter of 2019.
Net profit fell to SAR 581.2 million in Q3-19, compared to SAR 635 million in the same quarter of 2018, according to a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) on Sunday.
Revenue increased by 7.71% during the July-September period of 2019 to SAR 3.573 billion from SAR 3.317 billion in Q3-18, Almarai said.
The company attributed the drop in net profit to a continuous decrease in revenue from the juice category as well as the decline in sales in Bahrain where the value-added tax (VAT) was introduced earlier this year.
Moreover, selling and distribution expenses (S&D) grew by SAR 54.6 million or 10.1% year-on-year due to higher general marketing expenses and trade support offset, the Tadawul-listed company added.
In the first nine months of 2019, the company’s net profit retreated by 8.61% to SAR 1.499 billion from SAR 1.641 billion in the corresponding period of 2018.
Revenues for the nine-month period this year soared by 4.62% to SAR 10.64 billion from SAR 10.17 billion in the corresponding period in 2018.
It is worth noting that Almarai had previously posted in its preliminary financial statements for Q2-19 a net profit after zakat and tax of SAR 582.5 million, down 11.9% from SAR 661.4 million in Q2-18.
