Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome all of you again to SCGP analyst conference. Today, we will cover the performance of the first quarter of 2024. My name is Vikorn from the IR team, and I will be your host this afternoon. As usual, we will start with the presentation by our management, and we will have the Q&A session right after. Without further delay, may I introduce and hand over the floor to SCGP CEO, Khun Wichan Jitpukdee, and SCGP CFO, Mr. Danaidej Ketsuwan . Thank you.
Good afternoon and [Non-English content] . Once again, time flies so fast. Now, we are reaching the next week, last week of April, meaning we are almost finished four months of this year, which has the 12 months, meaning 33% time has passed. That is why I was saying that time flies so fast. However, for the first quarter performance of SCGP, a bit improved from the last quarter. Start with the revenue from sale here, THB 33.9 billion, which improved 1% year-on-year and improved 6% Q-on-Q. This is mainly improved in the sale volume, especially in the integrated packaging chain and also fiber business. For the EBITDA, this time on the first quarter, we did THB 5.1 billion, which improved 15% year-on-year and also 17% Q-on-Q, which lead to the EBITDA margin up to 15%. This would be a bit higher than the industry average.
For the net profit, this time, THB 1.7 billion, which improved 41% year-on-year and 42% Q-on-Q, which lead to the profit margin of 5%. If you look at this figure, the sale revenue improved only about 1% to 6% year-on-year and Q-on-Q here, while the profit improved almost 40%. This is mainly the profitability from the, we call the recycled paper management. We diversify the port and try to manage the cost of raw material. In addition to that, with the artificial intelligence, we can reduce energy costs. On top of that, you see here the revenue increase mainly from the volume increase from last year. When we run at the volume, the machine running more than 90%, that lead to the variable costs are much reduced. With that three main factor, lead to the net profit improve much more than the sale revenues.
However, if you look at the country in each country, which the three country that are main our business country, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Frankly speaking that Thailand and Vietnam, the overall performance is better than expected. However, Indonesia a bit weaker in the last two weeks of March due to the early Ramadan and holiday. That will be the financial result lastly on the first quarter. Look back into the business portfolio in term of the revenue from the sale by business unit. Not much change, you know. The integrated packaging business still 75%, while fiber business is 19%, recycling business still 6%, so the figure is not much change much. However, the most important in the middle circle graph here, revenue by sale by end destination. You see here, Thailand improved from 42%- 43%, while Indonesia still maintain at 15%. The most interesting is that in Vietnam.
Vietnam used to be 13% and now improved to 15%. It is time to reach the decision point that in the past quarter, actually start from fourth quarter last year that in Vietnam, we have the one location. We have two paper mill in one location. Now we reach the time that these two machines already run at full capacity. So now we are considering and studying a lot. As you know that in the North Vietnam, we have paper machine number three, which we still are pending. In December this year, we will make the decision. However, with this full capacity come to the point early, so we are consider other alternative also to be maintained to keep our leading position in Vietnam. While the export still at 17%- 18%, same as last figure.
However, the export to China reduce from 7% to 6%, which is not that much we export to China. In term of the portfolio now, the consumer link improved to 74%. I think this help to stable SCGP performance. A little increase by little from 70%, 71%, 72%, 73%, and this quarter, we reach 74%. Look at the movement in term of the market situation in term of macro economy. You see that the manufacturing activity has been improved in all the major economies area. We can see here on right-hand side, I mean the manufacturing PMI. We see ASEAN improved, China improved, and U.S. also improved a lot. This help to improve the demand of the packaging. In terms of the recovery of the global trade, this is quite evident that on the graph right-hand side you see here. The export value, especially Thai and Vietnam, has been improved.
Indonesia, quite a bit unstable. China and India also improved. This is helped to uplift the packaging demand existing now and going forward onto into the second quarter and third quarter. In terms of the ASEAN demand growth, we believe that it is going to be continued and this help the domestic consumption to be improved and help to recover in terms of the business segmentation. Lastly, in overall on the performance in the first quarter of this year. Next, may I introduce Danaidej to explain the detail in each market, please come.
Yes. We look at the demand movement. From this chart, you can see that most of the arrows are pointing up and in green. So we would say that this first quarter is a very good quarter in terms of the overall demand across the region, with the exception of Vietnam for the Q-on-Q because of the Lunar New Year holiday there. That soften the demand. So I would say the demand figures if we look at the Q-on-Q for the growing economies range between 5% to 10% in terms of growth and 6%- 9% in terms of the year-on-year growth. The demand improvement has come from most of the segments. If you can look at here, the plus signs is covering all of the major segments that we have.
Looking at consumer staples, the rise, of course, in F&B and consumer products, that's always been the highlight in many quarters and still continue to grow in this first quarter, and partly from the preparation for the Songkran in Thailand and Hari Raya holiday. The demand for the manufacturers to produce more goods during the first quarter is quite evident. In terms of the export, we have improved demand for also similarly in term of the food products such as frozen food, canned food, and fruits for example. For consumer discretionary, the recovery is quite evident also in this quarter compared to the previous quarters. E&E has been up, especially in refrigeration and cooling segments like air condition which coincide with the hot season in Southeast Asia. Also we see the pickup of export in term of apparel and footwears, especially out of Vietnam.
With that, we are back into the upstream of packaging paper which increase in term of domestic demand in the same trend. The demand growth in domestic demand in ASEAN has been quite evident as well as the export to particular countries like South Asia. But because of the Chinese New Year, the slowdown in export to China market in the first quarter. For food service packaging in Asia, like Japan and the U.S., we have seen some growth due to the rebound of economic activity, the traveling. But because of the high freight rate coming from in the Middle East issues, we have seen reduced export flow of products of food service packaging from Asia to Europe. That hampers a little bit on the supply and demand situation.
For pulp has been very good all across the region, and that's because of the recovery in the textile, especially in the dissolving pulp market. From this page, you can see that the overall, this is a bright quarter in term of the demand growth in the region. Now back to our performance in the first quarter by segment. We talk first by the integrated packaging business. Revenue number is about THB 25.5 billion. This is relatively flat year-on-year. Although the volume was up by about 6% in this chain, the price has been down also year-on-year by similar. That's why revenue is flat. But if you look at the Q-on-Q growth in each particular business unit, we see that for the polymer packaging the Q-on-Q was slightly down.
That's because of the impact of the public holiday in Vietnam, because most of the revenue for this polymer packaging is generated out of Vietnam, for example, from Duy Tan and Batico. But if we look at the situation in Thailand, it's still quite a strong growth and resilient in term of personal care and pet food. Also in Duy Tan we opened a new Hanoi showroom, and that is to augment on the online platform they have. This is just to show the continuous growth for the product of Duy Tan in the region. Next will be on the fiber packaging, which is the box business. This show growth of 5% Q-on-Q both in term of volume and also in term of price. That is just, like we mentioned, is a preparation for the new holiday and also in the recovery of the tourism.
For the export consumer segment like frozen food, canned food, footwear, and garment also is contribute to the increase in revenue for fiber packaging. For packaging paper, this is a star in term of the volume growth. We see it is 7% Q-on-Q both in term of domestic and also in the key export market. You can see that our utilization is actually reaching 92% comparing to the previous quarters in last year on average of in the 80s. This propelled by the increase in the sales volume. In term of price, we also see increasing in the product price across the board. In Indonesia, we see a price going up by 8% Q-on-Q.
With this, it leads to the EBITDA which is, for this chain, close to THB 4 billion, up 9% year-on-year, mainly from the improvement of volume and also from the reduction in cost, most notably the ability to manage the RCP cost. That is why the margin has improved to 16%. I would say the major contributor for the integrated packaging business is higher volume, as well as the ability to manage the cost to preserve the higher margin. Next will be on the fibers business. For fibers business, the revenue was THB 6.5 billion, and this is up both year-on-year and Q-on-Q. For year-on-year, the volume is up for both paper and food service packaging. This is the reason for giving the rise in revenue.
Also for the Q-on-Q, we see that the food service packaging actually dropped slightly, and this is because of the QSR or the quick- service restaurant segment in Malaysia. They have lower sales there, but we were able to enhance that portfolio by selling more to Japan products, to the Japanese, so that helped. For the paper, also higher volume for both fine papers and also in term of specialty paper. We have higher volume sales due to the school term and the book fair, and also higher export to India market in term of specialty paper. For pulp, has significant increase in term of revenue Q-on-Q, and the majority is from the improvement in the dissolving pulp in term of sale volume and also in term of price. That actually leads to the very high EBITDAR numbers for the fibers business.
We can see that the double-digit increase in term of EBITDAR both year-on-year and Q-on-Q. The margin has reached 90%, and that is mainly the contributor from both dissolving pulp and the paper business. Because of the higher volume demand and the higher price, we also shift our maintenance activity that was planned in the first quarter to the second quarter. That is also one of the contributor to the higher revenue and EBITDAR. Next, we move to the financial part. Core profit was at THB 1 billion and 686 million. The number of adjustment is quite small. We have FX gain of THB 48 million, so our net profit come to THB 1.725 billion. For capital structure and capital expenditure, our net debt remain quite stable compared to the last quarter at about THB 31.5 billion.
We have cash on hand by the end of the quarter of about THB 18.6 billion, with the interest-bearing debt both in term of loan, debentures, and lease obligation of THB 50 billion. This gives the numbers of net debt to EBITDAR of 1.7x and also a D/E of less than one. Talking about capital expenditure for the first quarter is about THB 1.49 billion. That is a mix of maintenance, efficiency, and growth CapEx. We do have a budget for this quarter of about THB 15 billion. We think about THB 10 billion would be coming from growth CapEx such as organic expansion and also M&P in the pipeline.
In addition to that, we will also have, as we all mentioned, the potential CapEx in term of the additional acquisition of Fajar shares, which will come later in the year of approximately about THB 23 billion. In term of Fajar, the performance of Fajar has slightly improved in the first quarter. Basically, the volume of domestic volume increased somewhat. T he volume export dropped mainly because of the Chinese New Year in China. The export to China portion reduced. The price has been going up, especially domestic price together with export price together up about 8%, so t hat's performance of Fajar. We continue to take actions to try to improve the performance. One is to try to increase the integration level by trying to find M&P of box business. Still, that will enhance our integration and will lead to better margin for the whole chain.
We try to expand our MNC clients to a higher value products like lightweight paper. Also in term of securing competitive cost of raw material or RCP, we target to have domestic portion to remain at 50% or higher, including additional synchronization and production of sales in order to maintain the competitiveness of the business. In term of timeline of the share acquisitions, the start date for the exercisable of the put and call would be the late June or 28th of June. With that there was a 60-day period in which to implement the share purchase. That puts us 27th of August to be the earliest date of this transaction. We would say it would happen sometime after the end of August for this transaction. Anyway, I think Wichan may want to add some more on this.
I think it is okay. For this, as we discussed last time, we have a few investor interest in Fajar. However, the price that they offer still not reach our target yet. The process still continue discussion. Let us see the partner who give our synergy and can give us the value. Hopefully in the next quarter, we can update you once again. For next, this figure we set update here. You can see that the performance improved, very much improved, especially every segment has been improved in terms of the demand. That is a good news for the first quarter, and we wish that this will be continuing to the second quarter. However, I come back to the strategy of the company about the quality growth here. We have both organic and inorganic growth here.
In last month, in the end of March, we finished the expansion of the fiber packaging project, which are located in Samut Prakan Province in the Bangpoo Industrial Estate, and another location in Samut Sakhon, which are near the food processing company. We prepare a short video clip, less than a minute. Kindly the team to show the clip to the analyst club. That a short clip for the fiber packaging, which already are finished and start commercial running in the end of March. This location, as mentioned earlier, once put in the Samut Prakan province, which near all the industrial estate with all the electrical and the electrical appliance in that area. Another area which is a bigger capacity in Samut Sakhon, that located near the canned food, frozen food export, even the chicken, things like that.
This will be set up and putting in the strategic area. Talking about the capacity here, we have the 75,000 ton per year, equal to 9% of capacity in Thailand increase, this is a good move. Looking into the strategic location here, you can see that this is the central region of Thailand, we will see, and is near the customer and also near the seaport. This will improve the logistic cost and help to manage all the supply chain. In addition to that, and on top of that, is that this is the most modern factory that we have ever built because this is the newest. You can see that in the video clip, we use a robot. Actually, the people or operator that walk in the video, it just we ask them to walk, otherwise you just see all the machine.
In fact, we can reduce a number of the people, number of the employee who operate this factory. Hopefully we can expand the new technology with the robot and other control system to other factory. That will be the organic expansion. In term of the M&P, we still continue to discuss. Hopefully, in next quarter, we have progress update, and we will come to update to all those of you again. Next one about the innovation update. As you know that we have the contract with the Origin Materials technology. Look back to last year. Last year, we finished a proof of concept and technology verification and also pilot testing and also setting the condition that already done in the past year, 2023. With the amount of the investment, $30 million that we use for this project already.
Coming in this year, 2024, this year we will do the market study and techno-economic study. This is really important for this year. We also want to verify partner now. A few of the Japanese come to see us and want to talk in this. But it's too soon to conclude and selection the partner, but the discussion is still continue. Come back to the technology of Origin Materials. As we know that last year, the price of the PET or virgin PET has been reduced and make this technology difficult to make the competitive. In this year, actually start from last year that we aim, instead of we go to bio-PET, we go to PEF which PEF has a higher barrier compared to bio-PET. Has much higher. For example, for oxygen barrier, PEF has 10 times higher than PET.
Carbon dioxide barrier also, PEF has more than 20 times than PET, meaning PEF can use more high value of the product. In other words, that can be life extension of the product. This is the thing that we do this year. Looking into the future, we plan to bring the raw material for the demonstration plan testing in next year, 2025. That will be the update of the innovation which we set up and join with Origin Materials. Next is the further into end of this year. We see that the programmatic M&P still focus on the new growth segment or new business or even the adjacency business. Hopefully in the next quarter, we come back to update you again. In terms of the fiber packaging, as mentioned.
This, we plan to ramp up the capacity in the next two quarter, second quarter and third quarter also. With this one, we can fulfill the requirement of the customer, especially for the Food & Beverage. Once again, one of the factor that we can gain the benefit in the first quarter, one of the three is that about energy cost. So we can expand the successful energy cost saving in Thailand to Vietnam and to Indonesia. In terms of the macroeconomy, we can see that the global inflation has been stable. In many country that start to reduce the interest rate, so this will improve the consumer spending. However, the demand of the packaging, as mentioned earlier also, this quarter, first quarter, has been improved and also second quarter it can be continued.
By demand rising of this packaging, so it will cause the RCP price also level up. So this will pressure us to increase the price in the second quarter and third quarter. In terms of the new market and new area, especially emerging market in ASEAN, of course, we see those in the first quarter. One thing we see here in India, it has been improved a lot in terms of the global trade and the export. Last but not least, for the key takeaway we see here. The target for this year, we aim to grow double digit as we plan for this year. Second is that we extend the leadership position in the ASEAN in terms of the research development and innovation.
As mentioned, we spend for Origin Materials $3 million, which lead to the expense or investment of R&D and innovation for the first quarter, THB 256 million , which equal to roughly 0.75% of the sale revenue. Which high number in term of the R&D and innovation investment. Of course, by this one, we are catching the trend about the ESG and also the practice and also improve of the ESG and greenhouse gas emission. Last but not least, again, to improve the profitability and create the competitive long-term competitive advantage and also want to create long-term competitive differentiation with the business model. With this one, we put up the fiber packaging in Samut Sakhon with very cost.
This one, we help SCGP to manage the value chain and the supply chain along with the customer and also with the supplier. On top of that, in automation, as shown in the video clip, also we want to expand artificial intelligence and machine learning into Vietnam and Indonesia. That conclude the presentation of the first quarter results of 2024. We would like to thank all the participants for joining our virtual event, and we look forward to seeing you again in the next quarter. Thank you and [Non-English content]