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THE
transportation arm of the Aboitiz Group suffered a net
loss for the first quarter of the year as the company
said it is continuing to change its operations from
purely ferrying passengers and delivering cargoes into
becoming a value-added service provider to other firms.
Aboitiz Transport System Corp. (ATSC), the operator of
brands such as SuperFerry vessels and 2Go, said in a
disclosure that it had a wider net loss of P36.1 million
during the first three months of the year compared with
P24.1 million in losses last year.
The
company also hinted it may continue to face higher fuel
prices for the rest of the year, which will add more
pressure on ATSC’s profitability.
“Total costs and expenses of ATSC jumped 20 percent
largely due to higher fuel and charter-related expenses.
The continued rise in fuel prices has eroded ATSC
margins, although this has been mitigated through the
growth of its value-added services,” the company said.
The
company said it had P3 billion in revenues for the
period, some P2 billion of which accounts for cash flow
from moving cargoes, and the rest from passengers and
some other businesses.
It
said volume from cargoes delivered through its network
of road and ferries, a significant portion of which was
from its subsidiary 2Go, continue to post double-digit
increases and now accounts for 28 percent of its cargo
business from just 18 percent last year.
ATSC
has been converting some of its unused spaces for
passengers to load more cargoes as people continue to
shun its services, which used to be the company’s cash
cow, as a result of stiff competition from airlines and
other interisland vessels.
The
company said it had reduced its vessels’ passenger
capacity by about 44 percent through a combination of
selling vessels and conversion of spaces for cargo
loading. But the firm still managed to pare down the
decline in passage revenues to just 3 percent to P617.6
million compared with the previous year’s P637 million.
The company did not divulge the number of passengers it
had for the period.
Service fees, or those coming from new businesses
generated by 2Go, grew by 45 percent to P352.2 million
from the previous P242.3 million.
The
company is more and more becoming a third-party
logistics provider to firms such as Mercury Drug and
Wrigley’s. The service involves shipping, transportation
and distribution of products from the manufacturing
gates to any part of the country.
“[ATSC] is determined to transform itself into a
value-added service organization with its efforts
focused on integrating its services to build complete
supply-chain management solutions,” the company said.
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