Directors of Nestle Nigeria Plc, on Monday presented its unaudited financials for the first quarter ended March 31, 2018, indicating that revenue from sales could only limp by 10%, which was way better than profit for the period, which crawled 3% up.
Turnover of Nestle Nigeria for the period rose to N67.463bn up by 10% from N61.151bn, while cost of sales increased by N4.037bn or 10.72% to N41.705bn, up from N37.668bn; leaving gross profit at N25.757bn, up from N23.483bn.
Marketing and distribution expenses increased from N8.047bn to N9.029bn; administrative expenses stood at N2.208bn from N2.225bn; while results from operating activities was a profit of N14.519bn, as against the N13.209bn in the first quarter of 2017.
Finance income dropped significantly by N2.319bn or 89.18% from N2.601bn to N281.299m; while finance costs dropped to N1.159bn from N1.528bn; as net finance cost for the period stood at N878.591m from an income of N1.072bn in 2017.
Profit before tax dropped to N13.64bn from N14.282bn; while net profit inched to N8.605bn from N8.358bn in 2017Q1; translating to Earnings Per Share of N10.86, up from N10.55 in the 2017Q1.
A segment analysis of the financials of Nestle Nigeria showed that the bulk of revenue was the N43.014bn, up from N40.253bn; while beverages segment fetched N24.449bn, as against the N20.897bn garnered in 2017Q1; while profit from food business stood at N10.346bn from N10.21bn; just as beverages revenue increased from N3.019bn to N4.177bn.
Further analysis showed that N66.348bn of the turnover by Nestle Nigeria for the period came from Nigeria, up from N60.759bn; while export revenue climbed to N1.115bn from N391.523m.