Saudi Arabia-based Almarai recorded an 8.4 per cent increase in the second quarter of 2022, driven by revenue growth in bakery, poultry, and fresh dairy categories, it said in a filing on Tadawul.
Revenue rose 15.1 per cent to SAR4.6bn in the same period, the company said, as trading conditions improved post-Covid-19. The reopening of schools as well as high tourism numbers also contributed to the growth.
Almarai’s bakery category led the growth during the period, recording a 124.6 per cent increase due to higher sales. Its poultry business contributed a 15.3 per cent increase in profit mainly driven by revenue growth.
“We expect the positive momentum to continue, albeit lower rate in coming quarters as we will enter normalised trading patterns in the second half of the year, from a comparison perspective,” the company said in the stock exchange filing.
The surging cost of inflation for dairy and feed commodities remains a key risk in the business, Almarai said, but it “will continue to manage this risk by better hedging activities and by leveraging its stock cover where relevant”.
