The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is seeing a softer growth in its sales for 2018 following an unusually strong performance for the past two years.
According to Meralco president Oscar Reyes, the company still see a strong growth potential in 2018 but not as much as what it registered in 2016 and 2017.
“We’ve had relatively strong performance in 2016, 2017. We have to take it with context of high base in the past 24 months. We’re still calling for potential growth, let’s say 3.5 percent,” Reyes said.
In 2017, Meralco is looking to pass through last year’s core profit as the unpredicted surge in sales will be tempered by the intense retail competition and ongoing developments in the company’s power generation business.
Energy sales volume this year was seen to remain strong even though it’s lower versus in 2016 as demand continued to pick up in the franchise area.
“It’s been a slow start in the first three months. For the year, we’re still seeing mid-four percent. We’re at 4.5 percent year-to-date as of end-October,” Reyes said.
In 2016, meanwhile, energy sales rose 8.1 percent to 40,142 gigawatt-hours (GWh) that went beyond the company’s estimates which was driven by the El Niño phenomenon and election-related activities.
Last year, Meralco had a core net income of P19.58 billion and reported net income of P19.18 billion.
