Almarai reports a solid performance for 2016

Almarai closed the year 2016 with solid gains in nearly all of its product categories achieving net sales of SAR 14.7B, a growth of +6.6% over last year. The launch of 16 new products, including milk powder and cupcake, during 2016 helped strengthened its position as the leading food and Beverage Company throughout GCC, Egypt and Jordan.  

Despite difficult trading conditions and heightened competition, Almarai net income margin grew to 14.2% of revenue. This was thanks to tailwind in input costs, focus on operational efficiencies and tighter cost discipline. Almarai net income of SAR 2.1B, a growth of 8.6% over last year, was driven by improvement in the dairy, juice and bakery businesses whilst the losses in the poultry business increased due to heavy competition from frozen imports, particularly in Q1.

Almarai continued to invest in its operational capability with SAR 4.5B in capital programs, mainly in the dairy processing factory in Al Kharj, a state-of-the art new bakery processing plant in Hail and arable farms in North and South America.

Almarai earnings per share increased from SAR 2.35 per share to SAR 2.54 per share.