Companies listed on The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) reported a net profit of THB 284.66 billion (USD 8.13 billion) during the first quarter of 2017, growing 21.36 percent from Q1/2016, due to the recovery in Energy & Utilities and Petrochemicals & Chemicals sectors, and the continued growth of the consumer goods businesses.
SET Senior Executive Vice President Santi Kiranand said aggregate earnings for Q1/2017 were compiled from 572 listed firms, or 92.41 percent of the total 619 companies (including property funds, infrastructure funds and real estate investment trusts; and excluding non-compliance and non-performing groups), as of March 31, 2017. There were 431 companies making net profits, representing 75.35 percent of the total listed companies already disclosed their financial statements.
Their total sales in the first quarter of 2016 increased 13.28 percent from the same period of 2016 to THB 2,705.12 billion (USD 77.29 billion), with a net profit increased by 21.36 percent to THB 284.66 billion. The increase was due to the improved sales and profits of Energy & Utilities and Petrochemicals & Chemicals industry sector. Listed companies’ gross profit margin was at 23.98%, a slight drop from Q1/2016. The 70% increase in oil price in the first quarter to USD 53 a barrel was advantageous to the performance of oil-related businesses, while affecting the production cost of other businesses.
If excluding the performance of Energy & Utilities and Petrochemicals & Chemicals sectors, listed companies’ overall Q1/2017 performance still showed improvement with sales up 4.89% and net profit up 2.31% from the same period a year earlier.
“In the first quarter of 2017, the Thai listed companies’ net profits were up due to the recovery of the oil and petrochemical businesses, resulting in higher sales and profits accordingly. Other sectors that showed sales and profit growth include Commerce, Agribusiness, Fashion, Electronic Components, Banking and Mining.
Although the growth of the medium-sized listed companies or those in SET51-100 had slowed down, the overall number of listed companies making net profit was at 75% of the total listed companies already disclosed their financial statements, maintaining the same ratio as in Q1/2016,” added Santi.
Comparing to Q4/2016, the sales of listed companies increased 1.56 percent, and the net profit increased 41.98 percent. However, the gross profit margin recorded a decrease (from 24.38% in Q4/2016).
The capital structures of listed companies are still strong with the debt-to-equity ratio (excluding those in Financials industry) in Q1/2017 at 1.21 times, close to 1.20 times in the same period last year and a slight decrease from 1.25 times at end-2016.
Meanwhile, companies listed on Market for Alternative Investment (mai) reported sales of THB 34.66 billion in the first quarter of 2017, a 12.42 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, while net profit increased 4.13 percent to THB 1.19 billion. The Q1/2017 gross profit margin slightly decreased to 23.77 percent from 24.06 in Q1/2016.