Unilever Nigeria Plc’s unaudited consolidated financial report for the nine-month ended September 2019 is not impressive at all. Reduced revenue, high cost of sales and other expenses all combined to hamper profitability. See the summary of the report below.
Revenue: Unilever’s revenue for the nine months period declined by 28.9% to N51.6 billion, down from N72.3 billion as at September last year. Unfortunately, the cost of sales did not really reduce much despite reduced earnings and this ultimately impacted negatively on profitability.
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In specific terms, Unilever’s cost of sales in nine months stood at N41.9 billion as against N49.4 billion during the comparable period last year. This represents a 15% decline. Selling and distribution expenses also declined by 18.4% to N2.5 billion, as did marketing and administrative expenses which collectively stood at N7.5 billion; representing a 34.1% reduction compared to N11.4 billion in September 2018.
Gross Profit: Again, the above reductions in expenses did not help the company because after deducting the costs associated with producing and selling the company’s products, gross profit for the period only stood at N9.6 billion which is 57.8% less than N22.9 billion, which was recorded during the comparable period last year.
Profit before taxation for the nine-months is a paltry N647.1 million, marking a 94.9% decline compared to N12.6 billion in September last year.
Profit after tax also dropped significantly by 94.9% to N540.7 million all the way from N9.6 billion during the comparable period last year.
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Due to the foregoing, it is not surprising that the company’s earnings per share attributable to shareholders is just N0.9 as against N1.66 in September last year.
Download the report here.
