Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Wilcon Depot's fourth quarter and full-year 2024 earnings call. Thank you for joining us today. With me in the call are our CEO, Lorraine Belo-Cincochan, and our COO, Rosemarie Bosch- Ong. Before we start, I would just like to remind everyone that the presentation this afternoon and the subsequent Q and A may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from expectations. Moving along, I will now turn over the call to Lorraine for a short presentation, and after which we will open the call for your questions.
Thanks, Jean. Let me share my screen. I hope I'm clear. Jean, is my audio okay? Good afternoon, everyone. For our fourth quarter results, our net sales for the quarter reached PHP 8.5 billion, lower by 2% year-on-year.
PHP 411 million net income after tax, lower by 45.8%. Gross profit margin rate of 37.9%, EBITDA margin of 10%, and EBIT margin of 6.4%. Comparable sales growth of negative 7%, driven mostly by the drop in ticket size by 6.9%, while transaction count was almost steady at negative 0.2%, or almost flat. The company opened two new Depot stores located in Luzon during the quarter. For the total sales breakdown for the quarter, let me hide the controls, so that might be blocking the way. Net sales from Depots accounting for 96.2% of total sales was lower by 1.4%, or PHP 119 million year-on-year to close PHP 8.18 billion. The smaller format DIW stores net sales, contributing 3% to total sales, amounted to PHP 258 million, up 34.8%, or PHP 67 million due to the two new DIW stores opened in the first quarter of 2024.
Project sales totaled PHP 63.4 million, lower by 68.8%. Total sales versus 2023 declined by 2%, or PHP 170 million, due to the contraction of all product categories except paints and sundries, furniture, furnishing, and houseware. Comparable sales for the Depot format contracted by 5.9%. Comparable sales for the DIW format were slightly lower by negative 0.7% only, as the generally positive results from the newer DIWs offset the decline in the smaller older format stores, formerly called Home Essentials. Project sales lower by 68.8% in view of fewer and smaller projects being served. Comparable ticket size dropped by 6.9%, while comparable transaction count was flattish at 0.2%. Gross profit of PHP 3.217 billion was lower by 6.7%, or PHP 230 million, in view mainly of the gross profit margin contraction by 190 basis points year-on-year to 37.9%.
There were more marketing promotions across all categories that were implemented during the quarter versus the same period in 2023. Exclusive and in-house brands accounted for 51.9% of total sales for the period. Operating expenses, including lease related interest income, increased to PHP 2.82 billion during the quarter, up 10.8%, or PHP 275 million year-on-year. The increase is traceable mainly to increased taxes and licenses, utilities, and salaries. Lease related interest expense amounted to PHP 168 million, only PHP 1 million higher than the same period last year, as the decrease in lease liabilities for old stores has offset the additional lease liabilities booked for the new stores opened. Operations related other income or charges amounted to PHP 98 million, lower by PHP 10 million or 9.2% year-on-year, due mainly to lower collection of supplier support and fees.
Non-operating other income or charges amounted to PHP 50 million, up by PHP 49 million in view mainly of the recognition of the fire insurance claim, partly offset by the additional loss due to fire booked during the quarter. Net income for the quarter totaled PHP 411 million, lower by 46%, or PHP 347 million year-on-year. For the full-year, net sales totaled PHP 34.2 billion, lower by 1.2% year-on-year, generating a net income of PHP 2.528 billion, as comparable sales declined by 6.2%. As a result, lower transaction count by 2.8% and contraction of ticket sizes by 3.5%. Gross profit margin was at 39.1%, and EBITDA margin at 13.6%, and EBIT margin of 9.9%. Categories that did better than average for the year were paints and sundries, building materials, and furniture, furnishing, and houseware. Net income totaled PHP 2.5 billion, lower by 27.4%.
Gross profit margin rate of 39.1% with in-house and exclusive brands contribution 51.9%. Comparable sales was lower by 6.2% as both transaction count and ticket size declined year-on-year by 2.8% and 3.5% respectively. The categories that grew above the average growth were paints and sundries, furniture, furnishing, and houseware, and building materials. We opened a total of eight Depots and two DIWs in 2024. This brings the total number of new stores opened in 2024 to 10, to a total of 100 stores at the end of the year. On a per format basis, sales from the Depot format stores totaled PHP 32.829 billion, comprising 96.1% of sales, sliding by 1.5% year-on-year.
The smaller format, DIW sales totaled PHP 996 million, accounting for 2.9% of sales, growing by 34.4% with the two new DIWs opened in the first quarter performing well. Project sales contributing the remaining 1% of total sales amounted to PHP 347 million, which was lower by 35.7% year-on-year due to lesser number of projects from big developers served. As mentioned, categories that grew higher than company-wide average were paints and sundries, building materials, and furniture, furnishing, and houseware. For comparable sales, both comparable ticket size and transaction count were lower for the period, with transaction count decreasing by 2.8% and ticket size by 3.5%. The home improvement market remains soft with downtrading prevalent among those with construction projects.
Breaking it down per format, the Depot's comparable sales dipped by 5.8%. The smaller format, DIWs decreased by 3.2%, traced mainly to the lower sales of the older branches, formerly called Home Essentials. While projects declined by 35.7%. For the year, gross profit of PHP 13.349 billion was lower by 2.5% or PHP 345 million year-on-year due to lower sales and gross profit margin. The gross profit margin rate contracted from 39.6% in 2023 to 39.1% for the full-year of 2024, despite the increase in the contribution of the exclusive and in-house brands to total sales from 51.2% to 51.9%, due mainly to the price refreshes implemented in the latter part of the year.
Operating expenses, including lease related interest expense, increased to PHP 10.464 billion for the year, up 9.2% or PHP 884 million year-on-year. The increase is attributable mainly to the rise in taxes and licenses, trucking, and salaries. The opening of new stores likewise added to the depreciation and amortization charges and lease related interest expense. Operating other income or charges for the year amounted to PHP 502 million, 2% or PHP 10 million lower year-on-year, despite the additional collections of rental income and other regular supplier fees because of a higher 2023 base resulting from a one-off supplier rebate. The company recorded a net income of PHP 2.528 billion for the year, lower by PHP 955 million or 27.4%.
Lower inventory purchases led to improved liquidity ratios, while we continue to be bank debt-free with the company's liabilities consisting mostly of trade payables and lease liabilities recognized under IFRS 16 guidelines. For the year, capital expenditure totaled PHP 2.785 billion. Construction costs of new stores and warehouses recognized for the year amounted to PHP 1.9 billion. Store transportation equipment totaled PHP 497 million. Renovations repairs, PHP 358 million. IT related CapEx at PHP 29 million. In view of the continued softness of the demand for home improvement products, which led to lower transaction counts and ticket sizes, comparable sales continued to decline, hence operating margins were also lower for the year. Cash dividends of PHP 1.019 billion were distributed in May 2024, equivalent to PHP 0.26 per share, representing 11% decrease over the prior year's PHP 0.37 per share.
For six years in a row, that is every year since we listed, we have given out cash dividends, even in 2020 amid the first lockdown when majority of our branches were closed. We remain committed to distributing cash dividends consistently every year. For this year, we increased cash dividends to PHP 0.36 per share. To reiterate our key growth strategies, our store expansion, and this still remains a key growth strategy. We can calibrate store openings as to timing, given the continued softness of the market. We plan to open eight for 2025, with four of those already started construction last year. We already opened two this year. We opened a DIW branch in Cubao, Quezon City, just this morning. We will continue to enhance profitability of in-house and exclusive brands to increase their contribution and to diversify further our product portfolios.
We are continuously improving our physical and online store layout features and other customer experience enhancements. In fact, to reflect the changing preferences of customers and their home improvement path to purchase, we shall be changing our store layout initially for our two biggest stores. Further strengthen and increase brand awareness and visibility through relevant and relatable marketing campaigns and promotions. Thank you. I'll turn you over back to Jean.
Thank you, Lorraine. We are now o pening the call to your questions. As per usual, please click the Raise Hand button if you want to ask a question, or you may type your questions in the chat box and we will get to it later. Anyone wants to start? Karisa?
Hi, good afternoon, Lorraine, Rosemarie, and Jean. Just wanted to ask, on the margins, what's your outlook for this year? Should we expect continued acceleration in promotions or discounting that could pull down margins this year?
Well, we have all these things planned, right?
Okay.
The best deals.
Yeah. We have the best deals, and we want to say that it's not really promotions. It's really price refreshes.
Refresh, yeah.
I meant them right. We initially started with a few product lines, and given really the continued softness of the market, we really want to push for preserving market share. That's why we are looking to increase the SKUs across a broader list of SKUs among categories. In that sense, margins may be affected depending, of course, on the volume, the contribution that people will buy best deals versus just our normal product lines. In a way, yes, but we are also trying to balance it with customers buying best deals plus—
Yes.
—regular products. It kind of balances out or averages out.
The intention of the best deals is really to increase foot traffic and to drive more traffic to the stores. Based on experience also, there are customers that would buy best deals. At the same time, we will do upselling also, they would go for higher tier products. It is really balancing the regular items with best deals. Of course, we do not want to be left out in the market where everybody is dropping prices. We still want to be the destination wherein we are bigger, and we can offer a better price than what the others are offering.
What we are trying to say is that there may be a continued contraction, but because the results so far have been erratic, because of course, our best deals also have different margins, right?
That is why we cannot really determine, as of now, or how much is it. Although the fourth quarter margin, it was also during the fourth quarter when normally even our non-exclusive products, because the whole market is affected by the softness of the demand. Even them, the non-exclusives, they are also chasing quotas, chasing volume. They have also intensified their promotions. Although every really towards the end of the year, there are more sales being done especially by the non-exclusive suppliers, but even more so now. Some kind of everybody is doing it. That is why there was really a sharp drop in the fourth quarter. But in the rest of the quarters, there might be, but it might not be as sharp as if we are just only talking about those factors.
Thank you. Can you elaborate on the best deals or the price refresh? How is this different from, say, giving out promotions or bigger discounts? I just wanted to see the difference, understand the difference of the best deals and price refresh.
We do not want to say because many of you are our customers, but it does not necessarily mean that it is a discounted price when we say best deal. It is the best value. For example, on a certain product line, this model has the best value. It does not mean that we have discounted it from, it is the cheaper or the—
That you cut your margin just to be able to sell.
Yes.
It means offering value for money. So when we say best deals, this is the best—
Yeah.
—offer that—
There are those that are discounted, but there are also those that it is the best value among all the models that are there. For its price and the features or the material, you are getting the best value. But it does not necessarily mean that we cut the price or we sacrifice margin.
It is the-
So that is why we cannot really tell. We cannot say by how much.
We can have, yeah.
If I understand it correctly, it is more just trying to position the—
Yes.
—more value for money product.
Like-
It's not, yeah.
Yeah. It's just to-
It's more how you communicate or present—
Yes.
—to customers.
Yeah. It's just like making us being more relatable to our customers, that we're not snob or—
Yeah.
—very out of tune to the situation or to their situation.
Karisa, it's very much different to the loss leader approach, no? We're not really cutting prices or sacrificing margin just to be able to get the sales, no? Yeah. So it's different from loss leader.
Okay. Thank you. My last question would be on the same-store sales growth. How this is trending so far this year, are you seeing some improvement compared to the fourth quarter or last year? Year-to-date, yes, we've seen some improvement because of March, right?
Not only for year-on-year comparison, but on the average daily sales basis or the absolute amount. Hopefully it will continue. It's not really very dramatic because, of course, nothing really substantially changed in the macro. But yes, there is some improvement. We're hoping that this will continue. We're also doing improvements in our processes and even on how we do our selling, our organizational structure even in the stores. We are about to embark on some changes also there, just to really fit how we operate to how the customers are these days or what they prefer.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from me.
Sangam. Hi.
Yeah, hi. It's me again.
Yes.
Thank you for the call. Jean, wanted to understand, and it's kind of a continuation from what Karisa asked earlier. When we see Q4, where we have been trying to maintain the market share in terms of the revenue market share, and thereby there was some compromise on the EBIT margins and the net profit margins that came aboard. Now, is this going to be the new norm for margin profile, at least during this period where there is uncertain demand? Or do we see that this was more a tough margin and it would bounce back? How is that so far this year?
Okay. Based on our latest discussions, management has decided that we will prioritize sales or sales volume, top line market share. We may have to sacrifice, in the meantime, a little bit of margin so that we will maintain. What we're hoping and preparing to do is that we will not only preserve our market share, but maybe encroach some of our competitors' market share as well. I know it's difficult, but we're trying everything. We're cooking up something. Cooking up programs in our merchandising, in our sourcing, and even in our operations in our stores on how to move this new direction forward.
Would that mean that the 7% EBIT margins or 6.7% in Q4 and 4% PAT margins, that can get further compromised as we go forward?
It should be the lowest.
They are already at much lowest, yeah? That is why.
Yeah. It should be the lowest. Because the other expenses, like the depreciation and all that, we cannot do anything even in an accounting basis, especially in accounting basis, you cannot really.
Yeah. I agree on those part.
Yeah
What happens is on the marketing spends, et cetera, and the fact that, how much was the fire insurance that came in? What was the quantum?
PHP 118 million. PHP 118 million.
PHP 118 million?
Yes, yes.
If we adjust for that, we are already at closer to 3.5% net profit margin, 3% net profit margin.
No, but I think there was also some fire expenses that came in the fourth.
How much was the net one-off during the quarter?
The net one-off, I would say is 60. Something like that.
Okay. So this 3.5%-4% net margin is for now in the near term the new norm, or do you think that with the kind of growth that we are seeing, that should actually move up closer to 6%?
Yeah. I think it should move up.
Is there any range that you're seeing?
Yeah, because in December, from the first to the third quarter, our salaries increased only by around PHP 67 million. Just for the fourth quarter alone, salaries increased by PHP 90 million- plus. Yeah, like 150% of the whole nine months. That should not be the norm.
This PHP 90 million increase is now in the base salary, right? That would be the incremental base or there was any one-off bonus that was part of this PHP 90 million increase?
Yeah, there were bonuses.
Okay, got it. So adjusted for that, ideally speaking, you Okay, got it. When do you see, since we spoke about various initiatives to bring in newer products, increase the deals for across SKUs, et cetera. How has the first quarter been so far? Are we seeing any benefits of these changes getting reflected in the form of slight improvement in demand? Or do you see that the initiatives are there but demand—
Well, yeah. Even in the fourth quarter, we've seen an increase in foot traffic, meaning the lessening of the negative in the foot traffic, in the invoice count. Actually, it's already flat on an SSG same-store basis. It was just because of the price refreshes and the other straight discounting that we gave out in the fourth. Yeah, we see on our year to date some kind of the same thing. We're seeing something like the fourth quarter, right? That the transaction count has been improving or recovering. Yeah.
Got it. Last question. Since the focus is on the revenue growth for this year, and improving margins with operating leverage as it comes in, how 4% comes in from new store additions, assuming half year benefit comes through, what is it that we are looking at in terms of the overall revenue growth? Is it high single digits? Is it 4% revenue growth only because your SSG on the like-on-like comparable stores, which have been declining in the second half of last year, should that stem the decline and improve from here on? Because the focus is on revenue growth, I would like to understand, what's the outlook there? What's the internal guidance or what you're looking at there?
Okay. Well, towards the end of the year, we said, I think we can do double digit. Seeing what's happening in the fourth quarter and also in the first two months of this year, it seems like a very uphill climb to get to double digit. We're just hoping to get to a positive growth, right? Around mid-single.
Mid-single.
Yeah. For our total sales growth. Because we are still in the process, right? Of changing our merchandising, our sourcing in terms of volume and price strategy. We may need a little bit of time to wrap that up and to really determine which SKUs, which product lines, whatever, that could get us to that objective of pushing volume. Because, currently in the situation, the customers are really downtrading. They're really looking for value products. That's number one. Number two is that if we are successful and we are able to recover in volume what we gave up in terms of price, then we could achieve the mid-single positive growth for the year.
Got it. Thank you. I'll come back in the queue.
Any more questions?
Benjamin.
There is a— Okay, Benjamin. Yes.
Hi, Rose and Jean. Lorraine, thank you. Obviously weak economic cycle at this point, weak demand. Is there anything that you're seeing that would point to that this is anything different in this cycle than past cycles? I know that there's given what's going on with POGO, what's going on with excess supply of condominiums, and then weakness out of China, and weak China housing market and potentially weak demand from foreign demand from China. Anyway, anything that you're seeing that is different this cycle than past cycles that you would highlight?
Decline really compared year-on-year. We're seeing a decline in construction of residential housing, construction permit of residential housing. But we see the potential of focusing our energy now on non-residential, wherein we see an increase in application of building permits or construction permits. That's why, of course, we don't want to be too detailed. But we're really focusing now on tapping institutional accounts. Not just for new builds, but basically for maintenance and for the expansions. Because we saw some indications that all these different institutional businesses, they're still expanding their business across sectors. It can be restaurant, it can be gasoline stations, it can be hospitality. So we're focusing our energy on that. But I don't want to go into details. But we're doing something, we need to tap this.
We're leveraging on our strong network, so that what we're offering them is that we offer a different kind of service wherein it will be easy and convenient for them. Because from what we understand, what they're doing is that they don't have a standard in procurement. So it's spread all over the Philippines. So we're offering a different value to them so we can service them. It can be centralized, in terms of pricing, in terms of service, and then fulfillment will happen across different stores in different locations. Because we see a lot of institutional that are also similar to our network. They also expand outside the zone area or across the Philippines. So given our network and given our capabilities, so we can serve them. So those are the values that we're offering them. So hopefully it will increase sales.
We see also a downtrend in the project sales. Institutional sales, these are the big developers. But of course, there's other opportunities for businesses. Also hospitality. I've mentioned hospitality. The tourism can be one of the good indicators. Especially just recently in January, I think, Republic Act No. 12079, it's a scheme wherein it provides VAT refund to non-resident tourists, so that will further stimulate tourism in the country. Hopefully it will increase consumption and also for the small hospitalities or for the restaurants, they would also expand their businesses. They will expand, and they will renovate their spaces. We're looking into this. Hello? Yeah.
Got you. Thank you.
Yeah.
Maybe just one more, but what are you seeing in terms of changes in strategy or changes on the competitive landscape? Anything that your competitors are doing differently than you've seen them do in the past? Different strategy that they've undertaken?
What we notice is some of our competitors is that they're trying to level up their looks and presentation. Modestly I say, I think they're just copying us. We always have to think ahead. We always have to be a step ahead. I think Lorraine mentioned in her presentation that we're doing some tweaking in our reconfiguring our space. Again, I don't want to go into detail, but she mentioned that two of our legacy stores we're going to do some big major transformation, wherein we focus more on the path to purchase, looking at the point of view of the customers. So more convenience, more experiential shopping. That would really set us apart from our competitor, and it would be, again, hard for them to copy us.
As I've mentioned, what we're seeing in our competitors, whether it's a local versus an informal player, they're trying to go into modern trade. They're trying to be similar in terms of the merchandising, even the way they do marketing and even opening stores. That's why we're trying to be different now in our marketing activities as well. It's really difficult that people copy you. You always have to think ahead and be a step ahead of them.
May I just read out the questions here in the chat box?
Okay.
Number one, Jerry.
I think there's a question from Tunde. Tunde first. I don't know how much.
Okay. We will answer first Tunde's. How much impact does the Metro Manila condo crisis relating to POGO exit have on Wilcon sales? It is difficult to have like a—
It is not the whole. It is probably a few of our stores near those POGO residential areas. For example, specific to our Parañaque stores, that has been affected because there is a lot of POGO, those who rent residences. So those landlords or lessors, they do not anymore improve or renovate their space because they lose tenants, especially this. So not as a whole, but only on specific areas, especially Metro Manila areas which are near casinos. Yeah.
Yeah. Jerry, whoever you are, because there is only Jerry here, and wherever you are from, you have a question that in our stores in Pampanga, they are near each other. Actually, it is near each other, but one of those stores is being leased from a third party, and I think it is just now on a short-term renewal basis. So we are not very sure that we can stay as long as we would want there. So that is why we got another one, because that market is a very good market. We got another one which is not too far from where it is now, just in case, because otherwise it would be much more difficult to regain that market if you will be gone for a long time.
We found an opportunity to get a site, then we got it than wait for that we will be kicked out from that leased site and have nowhere to go. So that was the reason why we now have three very near each other, although it is a big market. In good times, it was not a problem. During good times.
I guess it's also because Pampanga is being positioned to be the next international destination, or international airport. So a lot of businesses also are locating in Pampanga.
Yeah.
I guess it's just that right for us to locate to Pampanga, expand more Pampanga, because it's an emerging province. I'm sure you've heard that the Clark International Airport is being considered. They're transferring some of the flights to Pampanga.
Tones, okay. Before I read the next question, Tones, please.
Hi, thank you very much. Hi, Lorraine. Hi, Miss Rose. Hi, Jean. Just a few questions from me. The first one is regarding your underperforming categories in Q4 and last year. Can you give us a little color on what's happening there? Is that lower performance driven by heavier discounts you give to these categories? And if you were to compare with your competitors in the market, how did these categories perform versus your peers in the market?
Okay. Yeah, because there is a down trade.
Because construction is down.
Yeah.
Most of the hard lines are really affected, particularly tiles and the sanitary wares.
Actually, yes. For the tiles, for example, our own brands and our exclusive brands actually did okay, in fact, for the whole year. It is the non-exclusive brands that—
Like the local tiles.
Yeah, the local tiles that did not do well, actually, and then pulled down the category. We were only negative 1%. Yeah, we are only negative 1% for our own exclusive and our own in-house brands in tiles. We had the big drop really in non-exclusive tiles. As we also, I think, shared before, actually these non-exclusive tiles that are sold everywhere, I think they are the more vulnerable to the direct import or the direct selling by offshore manufacturers. Hence, they also got affected even in our stores, especially in our stores because we only sell the high-end, the higher quality, like the type A, is that what they call that? Yeah.
For example, the biggest manufacturer of tiles in the Philippines, they did not expand their local production.
Yes, production. Yeah.
They did not expand their local production, so they are also importing.
Yes.
It has been our policy that we would support locally made.
Yes.
Locally made.
We are also-
Locally produced.
Locally produced. Yeah.
Also, I think because of the softness of the market, they were also aggressive in terms of—
In of discounting.
—discounting and also expanding into retail. But it was hard for them.
Okay. So, it's mainly driven by volume slowdown, not because of the price for these categories?
No. For our own brands, because we also did a lot of best deals, right? But we've almost recovered it in terms of volume. We generated enough volume to almost cover for the reduction in price. That's why the reduction in total sales for our own is only 1%. A little bit more, and we would have been successful in that strategy of refreshing our prices to generate the volume sales. It was the non-exclusive, which we don't control. We can control, but we will sacrifice also a lot, right? We don't control the price. We can control on our end, but we also don't know if the other distributors are selling the exact same product, right? What will they do, right? Or how they will sell that same exact product. So, that was actually the reason for that.
That's why we are continuing with this strategy, and we are very encouraged because we were almost there, right? With the tile. So we think that it's going to be effective. We just have to tweak a little bit more, strategize a little bit more, be smart about it a little bit more. And we feel that we could turn it around by just the merchandising strategy, the sourcing, the pricing, and of course, the selling.
Mm. Am I correct to understand that your in-house brand is cheaper than the non-exclusive brands?
No. No, it's not- not necessarily. It's because there are, for example, sizes or materials that we will not really offer as an in-house brand, and which a regular price of that will be in a lower price point.
Yeah, so plastic versus brass or plastic versus chrome. Plastic would be the cheaper—
You are muted.
Sorry, because you are on mute.
But for like products, like same material, same size, same thickness, is it cheaper?
Like for like.
Like for like, not necessarily.
Because we always—
But we are competitive.
—tag it at a premium. We always tag our product.
But no, not all models. There are actually also models that we are cheaper. And there are models that we are more expensive, and there are ones who are exactly the. The thing with the home improvement or construction materials is, there is the price, right? But it's like a volume game. And it's part of the selling strategy of all players to give a feelgood discount, right? Because you bought a lot of volume. So the final price, you actually don't know.
But you can— Yeah, you can play around with, say, if you buy, say, PHP 500,000 worth, I will give you across the board or across all categories an additional 3% or 4%. That changes, right? That changes the whole thing. But the next customer who will buy the exact same product but will only buy, say, worth PHP 5,000, will not get that 3%. The price will be at a higher level. That is why it is very difficult, and it is also very difficult to say for sure just by going around the stores and comparing the prices that are being displayed. Because you will never know for sure if that is the final price that a customer would pay. It can be different depending on the customer.
Okay. The other question is, how is your sales performance compared to the market, in Q4 last year and also for the full-year? Because I think your strategy is to maintain market share.
Of course, we have no way of really knowing for sure, right, until we can see—
Yes.
—the real data. Just talking with the suppliers, in general, all suppliers really are saying, 2024 is worse than 2023. But there would be, let us say, some suppliers that they will say they are performing better, say, in a certain region versus another region. There would be suppliers that would say that they are okay. In general, they are okay. Not great, but they are okay. Still positive. Mostly these are maybe the smaller players in a category or in a sub-industry. But the bigger ones generally would say 2024 was not a good year, fourth quarter. I think even for this year—
It was 20-
February, everybody was crying about February.
2024 when the factory closed in the Philippines, right?
Which one? The—
James Hardie.
Oh, yeah.
They closed their factory.
Yeah. It's a foreign-owned. They even closed.
Australia.
Australia, yeah.
Yeah.
They are even positive EBIT. They were positive EBIT, but just the volume was not enough to make it worth it for them, because they are foreign-owned.
They got lost.
Just to follow up on the margin outlook. As you mentioned, the promotion is going to be continuing this year. You did say that Q4 last year was probably the heaviest promotions that you were—
Yes
—giving out. We should see slightly better margin in Q1, Q2 this year. But for the whole year this year might be slightly lower than whole year last year. Am I correct to understand that?
I think we spoke too early on the margin. Because I do not have visibility of the whole, but just knowing that the non-exclusives, they're making a go at it, and we're letting them. Because we've—
Their own margin. They're doing it on their own, like the non-exclusive.
Oh, yeah.
They're doing the same price, but it will not affect our margin.
Hopefully. We're in this together. Despite us having developed all our in-house brands, we still of course still consider our suppliers as our partners. Since we are all feeling the challenges this reason, we've actually been talking with each other and decided to help each other. We are, I don't know if I should. If Careen were here, she would have fired me already because I'm too talkative. Anyway, what we're saying is because we decided to help each other, I mean, to be really good partners. We give each other a chance. We give each other a chance in our platform, in our stores. We give everyone a chance, ourselves, our partner suppliers, to really help each other elevate our sales. They are also being affected by all this, the cross-border, the direct selling, by the way, they're also affected.
We kind of agreed among each other that we will help each other, that we'll do this together. In that regard, I am not sure where the margin will go, but as I said, the gross profit margin may go wherever it would, but the objective, of course, is to preserve margin, and because we will, no preserve margin. Preserve or even increase market share, that it would still rebound to a better operating margin.
Understood.
That's the whole rationale for all these things that we're doing.
Okay. My last question. I might have missed this, but can you share a little bit about the year-to-date same-store sales growth and any target for SSG this year?
We can. Well, in the beginning, you said, we are probably half.
Improvement compared to Q4 last year. There is improvement this year.
Half. We said flat SSG, right?
Yeah.
Did we say? Maybe that's the best scenario, the flat SSG. That's the best.
That's flat for the whole year?
Yeah. The flat for the whole year.
T here's improvement compared to last quarter.
No, for the whole year.
For the whole year?
Yes.
It's hard to say.
Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.
I said it's the best scenario.
Okay. Thank you.
Nadine? Nadine. Sorry, Nadine.
Yeah. Thanks again for the opportunity. Just wanted to get more color on what led to the bigger jump in salaries. Is this due to the minimum wage adjustment?
Yes, there is that one. Yeah.
Do you have the percent of your personnel that is under minimum wage?
Actually, for the regular employees, I think very few are on minimum wage because we always give slightly above. But if the minimum wage moves, everybody else moves. I mean, at least the non-officers. Because otherwise, they will be too near each other. So it's an automatic everyone gets, except maybe for mid-managers and above, except for those people. But all the rest, it's kind of automatic, even if they're not on minimum wage.
I see.
Because they would. So that is one. Number two, actually for outsourced services, because our FS just got uploaded while we already started with our earnings call, but it is up now at the PSE Edge. There is really a very minimal, and in fact, for the fourth quarter, there is a decrease in outsourced services. Because we actually reduced headcount by 600.
Percent.
Yeah, 600 for our outsource in our stores. 600- 700. But we have also absorbed, we regularize. Yeah, we absorbed around 100 + of those people because, of course, we would need regular employees for salesmen and then to supervise, et cetera, because we are expanding. So that was the whole dynamics of that outsource and the whole manpower expense.
Thanks, Jean. And just a follow-up, is this relating also to the one you mentioned earlier, that there is a plan reorg? So this is a plan reorg.
Oh, the reorg is more for how we do our selling and our operations in the store. Not so much on cutting personnel further.
Maybe just—
Yeah, maybe some— Yeah, somewhat. Yeah, some reorg, but—
Sales approach.
Yeah, more on the processes and more on how we do the selling. How we sell.
The selling approach.
Yes.
Yeah. Because—
Can you tell us how you—
—the store layout, we will do some transformation.
Sometimes I wish we were a conglomerate so that we don't have to talk about these details in how we operate, because it's so—
It's going to be a big transformation, especially for the two legacy stores.
Yeah. We'll test it out in the two biggest stores. So we'll change the layout, we'll change how we do the selling, how we serve the customers. We're trying to—
The system.
Yeah.
The system. We will make it more fast and more convenient for the customers.
Yep.
Thank you, Jean. Last question on my end.
We will try to be, you know. Oh, yes, sure.
Yeah, I'm mindful of time. Can you share the latest inventory turnover and any target for this year?
Oh, it's still over—
In addition to that, how fast can we refresh merchandise? If there's any target to lower the inventory days, thank you.
It's still over eight months. There's always a target to lower. In fact, really our old we're giving it out 80%, but I think those were all provided for, of course. In 2022, we were already at eight months, and it was brisk sales, right? Sales were brisk, et cetera, and all that. 2024 is so far the slowest, and we just added a little bit less than a month to that eight months. The target, sure, it's always there, but actually how to execute it with this kind of market is difficult. Unless we really stop buying and just really sell what's there. But, if you have — Yes, definitely yes. Yeah.
Because of the softness of the market. Because that's why the days inventory is—
Longer.
—longer. But we've been actively working on increasing category A, B, like the fast-moving products.
The velocity.
Steadily, actually, we've been seeing more category A, B, and lowering of the D, like the C category. That's something that we cannot stop buying because we need to have fresh, new products to come to the store. Oh, sorry. You can't hear me. If I may repeat what I said. We've been monitoring the category A and B, which is the faster-moving products. So far, we've seen an increase or a steady increase in category A, B, and a trending decrease of category C products. But we cannot stop buying because we need to have fresh designs and new items to sell.
Obviously, that's why customers come to us, because we offer the latest and whatever is new in the market, it should be available at Wilcon . In that sense, we're a bit more prudent in our orders. But really, there will be some SKUs that we think will sell, but maybe the market doesn't really like. That's how we're managing the base inventory with the market. That's very challenging.
I'll just read out another question here before we end, because it's now over in past 5:00 P.M. Given your wide geographical reach across PH, any city/region that has been performing better than the rest?
Luzon.
Yeah.
South Luzon, because for one, it's emerging, and then we have more stores in those areas.
Yeah. So there.
There's another one. Dividend payout.
Where?
BJ.
Denise: What's management's view on the higher dividend payout ratio from around 30% last year to 60%? Do you expect this level to be sustainable moving forward? Thanks. We were targeting an absolute amount rather than the payout ratio. So, it depends on how much we will generate for the year. It's really more on the absolute. We just didn't want it, and if we had enough cash flow to increase, but we were determined not to give lower dividends in terms of absolute amount. So that's how the decision process went with this year's dividend. So for next year, it still depends, but the focus will again be on the absolute amount rather than the payout ratio.
On Benjamin's question.
Topline, you were expecting it.
There is a question from Benjamin. It is easy to answer. Of the eight stores, how many are DIW? One DIW, seven Depot.
Yes.
Of the eight, seven are in Luzon, one in Visayas.
Yong Hwa here asking, "Hello. Just to clarify on the full-year 2025 top-line growth guidance, you're expecting MSD top-line growth on eight new store additions, implying flat to slight negative SSG?" Yes. When we say the new stores, it's the one year or less. So, for example, for this quarter, those we opened, they opened in the last quarter or in the third quarter of last year is still counted as new store because it's still below one year, but counted for the first quarter of 2025 as new. So that's why. I guess that is all for today. Thank you again for joining us, and see you in our next earnings call.