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Unilever Indonesia’s sees 5% sales decline in Q1 2024
Net profit still grew by 3 percent yoy to Rp 1.45 trillion, compared with the same period last year, thanks to cost-cutting measures.
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Publicly listed consumer giant Unilever Indonesia's headquarters in BSD, Tangerang, Banten. (File/unilever.co.id)
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ublicly listed Unilever Indonesia saw its sales decline by 5 percent year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 10.1 trillion (US$623 million) in the first three months of this year, partly due to price adjustments, which the company followed with a series of cost-cutting measures to maintain its bottom line.
The major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturer reduced its cost of goods sold by 6.1 percent yoy in the same period. Other cost-cutting initiatives included commodity price handling, factory automation, cost restructuring and operational simplification.
Overall, the company still improved its gross margin by 1.5 percentage points to 49.9 percent compared with the first quarter of last year. Consequently, its net profit grew by 3 percent yoy to Rp 1.45 trillion, compared with the same period last year.
"The improvement in profit was driven by a few factors, including gross-margin expansion and a lower royalty fee [payable to its global parent company] as we received a royalty adjustment this quarter," stated Unilever Indonesia CEO Benjie Yap during a press briefing on Wednesday.
In March, the global parent of Unilever announced that it had reduced about 7,500 jobs worldwide from its total of 128,000 employees, mostly affecting office-based work, which it dubbed as a “productivity program”.
Read also: Unilever's stock falls amid calls for boycott
Unilever Indonesia stated in its financial report that it currently employed 4,575 people, down from 4,704 employees at the end of March last year.
