PPAP's 3Q17 review: earnings jump 44.6% YoY

Container throughputs surge 21.9% YoY

• In 3Q17, container throughputs handled by PPAP surged 21.9% YoY, reaching a record high of 59,425 TEUs. As a result, container cargo volume soared 42.0% YoY to 477,901 tonnes during the three-month period. This remarkable increase was particularly driven by 63% YoY jump in imports of construction materials and 22% YoY rise in exports of garment and footwear products through PPAP terminals. This is not surprising given strong economic activities in the rapidly growing Cambodia.

• In the first nine months of the year, container throughputs reached 139,312 TEUs, up 21.2% compared to the same period last year. As the result, the port operator achieved 24.6% and 14.3% YoY growth in container cargo volume and total cargo volume, respectively.    

Top-line posts highest YoY growth in three years

• Quarterly revenue rose 21.6% YoY to its peak of KHR23.74bn, posting the highest YoY growth in at least three years. Thanks to increasing cargo traffic, main sources of revenue including income from stevedoring, lift-on lift-off (LOLO), and port services saw robust growth in the third quarter of 2017, increasing 17.7%, 30.9%, and 9.4% YoY, respectively. While incomes from storage and sand-dredging services continued to decline due to fiercer competition from private firms offering similar services, these sources of income contributed no more than 3% of total revenue.

• Thanks to this strong performance in 3Q17, total revenue between January and September posted a solid 14.5% YoY growth, reaching KHR57.07bn.      

Operating profit sees more than 30% YoY growth

• EBITDA amounted to KHR15.01bn in 3Q17, nearly equivalent to KHR16.45bn in 1H17. This represents a 32.2% increase compared to 3Q16. While the port operator achieved more than 20% revenue growth, it was able to maintain a modest increase of just 5.1% YoY for operating expense. Meanwhile, EBIT reached KHR12.04bn in the third quarter alone, higher than KHR10.67bn in the first six months of the year. Although depreciation expense increased 21.8% YoY as a consequence of the company’s post-IPO expansion, this was slower than EBITDA’s 32.2% YoY, and so EBIT rose as much as 35.0% YoY.

• EBITDA and EBIT in the first nine month totaled to KHR31.47bn (+19.0 YoY) and KHR22.71bn (+18.0 YoY), respectively. These represent about 92% of those in 2016.

Net profit jumps 44.6% YoY

• With finance cost decreasing 9.4% YoY, pre-tax profit surged 42.6% YoY to KHR10.84b, while net profit jumped 44.6% YoY to KHR9.63bn in 3Q17.

• The first nine months of 2017 was marked by the remarkable performance in the third quarter. As the result, net profit during the period came to KHR16.43bn, which is almost equivalent to that achieved in the whole year of 2016.