Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Berhad posted a 4.3% year-on-year increase in net profit to RM129.6 million despite revenue declining by 6.2% to RM1,230 million for the nine-month financial period ended 30 September 2021. This encouraging result was mainly driven by stronger performance in the Singapore operations, successful premium innovations as well as stringent cost measures across the Group.
For the third quarter, Calrsberg posted lower revenue and net profit of RM349.3 million and RM26.0 million versus the same quarter last year. In Malaysia, the profit from operations rose 4.3% y-o-y to RM117.9 million for the 9 months while total revenue fell 13.3% y-o-y to RM817.1 million. Revenue for Q3 dropped by 24.8% to RM216.9 million, while profit from operations declined by 33.6% to RM17.8 million against the same quarter last year.
Accoding to reports, the domestic business was severely disrupted by the 11-week brewery suspension, coupled with the intermittent disruptions in distributions and export sales as well as dine-in restrictions. The Group also attributed the lower earnings of its Malaysia operations to the fixed costs incurred despite the shutdown of brewery, which was offset by the absence of the one-off RM6.4 million bill of-demand settlement paid last year to the Royal Malaysian Customs of Selangor as well as lower sales, advertising, and marketing costs during the nine-month period.
The Singapore operations delivered an overall better performance with revenue growth of 11.6% to RM413.4 million and profit from operations increased by 2.2% to RM41.7 million for the year. As for the quarter, revenue declined by 9.8% to RM132.4 million mainly due to the re-imposition of suspension of operations for all night entertainment establishments. Profit from operations declined by 41.4% to RM12.6 million against the same quarter last year mainly due to lower sales. The Group’s Sri Lankan-based associate company Lion Brewery (Ceylon) PLC also registered a lower share of profit of RM9.6 million compared to RM11.3 million in the previous year’s corresponding period impacted by the re-imposition of lockdown in August 2021.
Managing Director Stefano Clini said, “Given the unprecedented disruptions and challenges we faced in both Malaysia and Singapore, we are satisfied with the Group’s overall financial health and with lockdown restrictions being eased in both Malaysia and Singapore, we have set plans to launch new products in the coming weeks and will be rolling out exciting year-end festive promotions to help speed up the recovery in both on- and off-trade.
The Group remains committed to delivering long-term sustainable growth and shareholder value as it navigates through the new norm and changing business operating environment as well as improving cost efficiency.
