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- Lower costs boosts gross profit margins up y-o-y to 23.7 pct
- Debt to equity ratio (excluding Financials industry) kept strong at 1.22 times at end of Q3/2016
- Nine-month net profits worth THB 681 billion, up 35 pct from same period of last year
Companies listed on The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) reported a net profit of THB 208.99 billion (approx. USD 6 billion) in Q3/2016, a 251.68 percent rise from Q3/2015, supported by falling costs and no losses of foreign exchange rates and impairment.
Aggregate earnings were compiled from 527 listed firms, or 93.27 percent of the total 565 companies (including property funds, real estate investment trusts and infrastructure funds and excluding non-compliance and non-performing groups), as of September 30, 2016. There were 425 companies making net profits, representing 80.65 percent of the total listed companies already disclosed their financial statements.
Decreasing global oil prices pushed down costs of production of most listed companies, boosting gross profit up 9.50 percent to THB 590.66 billion and gross profit margins up at 23.67 percent from 21.12 percent a year earlier, although the overall sales dropped 2.27 percent to THB 2.50 trillion due to lower sales of companies in Energy & Utilities and Petrochemicals and Chemicals sectors,
Meanwhile, Thai listed companies' financial status at end-Q3 remained strong with debt to equity ratio (excluding Financials industry) at 1.22 times, down slightly from 1.23 percent at end-2015. From January to September, their net profits were worth a combined THB 681.40 billion, a 34.94 percent rise from the same period of last year, and their nine-month gross profit margin rose to 25.36 percent from 22.52 percent a year earlier, while their sales decreased by 4.41 percent toTHB 7.37 trillion.
Nevertheless, if excluding net profit of companies in Energy & Utilities and Petrochemicals & Chemicals sectors affected by falling oil prices, the sales of listed companies could be seen a 3.35 percent increase in Q3/2016 and a 4.51 percent increase in the first nine months of 2016, compared to the same period of last year, while net profits could increase by 17.88 percent in Q3/2016 and 10.18 percent in the first nine months, compared to the same period last year.
SET Senior Executive Vice President Santi Kiranand said, “The overall performance of the Thai listed companies in the first nine months has improved corresponding to the macro economics factors that have recovered mainly from services and consumer business. There were nine sectors that reported growth in total sales, net profits and gross profit margin in the January-September period compared to the same period last year, which are Banking, Property Development, Food & Beverage, Steel, Fashion, Packaging, Home & Office Products, Professional Services, and Paper & Printing Materials”.
Companies listed on Market for Alternative Investment (mai) reported net profit in Q3/2016, a 34.51 percent year-on-year increase to THB 1.96 billion. As for the first nine months of 2016, it reported a net profit of THB 6.14 billion, a 2.05 percent rise from a year earlier, added Santi.
