BJC Looks Past Soft Quarter as Packaging, Stores and Vietnam Grow

 

Glass and Can's order books are full through the year, while Berli Jucker expands Big C Mini stores and builds up its Vietnam retail business.

 

Berli Jucker Public Company Limited (BJC) played down a soft quarter of domestic retail sales at a media briefing on Wednesday, with chief executive Thapanee Techajareonvikul pointing instead to fully booked packaging production, an accelerating store roll-out, and growing scale in Vietnam as the more telling indicators of where the group is headed over the next 12 to 18 months.

 

The second quarter itself was mixed. Consolidated sales rose 2.6 per cent year-on-year to 43,744 million baht, gross margin edged up 42 basis points to 20.2 per cent, and reported net profit jumped 191.1 per cent to 2,882 million baht, though that figure was flattered by gains on asset disposals; adjusted net profit, which strips those out, rose a more modest 12.8 per cent to 1,228 million baht.

 

The group also booked 525 million baht in cost savings during the quarter, taking the first-half total to 917 million baht.

 

Packaging: orders booked through year-end

The clearest bright spot was the Packaging Supply Chain, where combined glass and aluminium can sales rose 29.7 per cent year-on-year to 7,452 million baht, and gross margin improved 86 basis points to 23.2 per cent.

 

Glass sales rose 31.4 per cent to 3,711 million baht, helped by newly consolidated operations in Malaysia and Vietnam alongside continued double-digit growth in Thailand, while can sales rose 28.1 per cent to 3,741 million baht on higher volumes in both markets.

 

 

 

Thapanee said demand for glass and can production from Thai Beverage-linked customers and other clients has filled BJC's order books through to the end of 2026, partly reflecting capacity taken out by competitors and partly reflecting genuine volume growth, including export orders.

 

With raw material costs for glass having risen, the company has locked in purchase prices through to mid-2027, which she said should keep production costs manageable even as near-full utilisation improves cost efficiency.

 

 

Retail: mini-store roll-out and a return to positive same-store sales

Modern Retail, which houses Big C and now MM Mega Market Vietnam (MMVN), had a harder quarter: sales fell 1.8 per cent year-on-year to 28,928 million baht, and group same-store sales growth (SSSG) fell 2.1 per cent, with Big C Thailand down 3.5 per cent partly offset by MMVN's 5.9 per cent gain. Gross margin nonetheless improved 31 basis points to 18.1 per cent.

 

Thapanee said Big C's same-store sales turned positive again in August, and she expects a further pickup into the year-end high season, supported by store renovations and an improving domestic economy.

 

The company is accelerating its "New Concept" Big C Mini format — 300 square-metre outlets with wider assortments, snack and drink zones and dedicated parking.

 

It had reached 18 stores by the end of the second quarter, against a full-year target of around 120 conversions and new openings, as part of a broader plan to expand the Big C Mini network by up to 200 outlets in total this year.

Internal figures show the new format delivering an 11 per cent sales uplift, a 200-basis-point improvement in EBITDA margin, 7 per cent ticket growth and 4 per cent basket growth compared with older formats.

 

 

 

Online and app-based sales also continued to grow, with out-of-store sales reaching 14.8 per cent of total sales, up from 12.7 per cent a year earlier, driven by e-commerce growth of 47 per cent and a 95 per cent rise in sales through the Donjai delivery partnership, whose store network now exceeds 32,000 outlets.

 

The Big Point loyalty programme added 1.2 million members over the year to reach 22.7 million.

 

Elsewhere in retail, BJC has sold 19 parcels of land previously used by Big C in the first half for around 10,000 million baht, applying the proceeds to debt repayment, and has 14 smaller plots still on the market.

 

The company is also continuing to explore a foreign listing for Big C within three to five years, with Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China and Vietnam all under consideration alongside a search for a strategic investor and is in talks with a Vietnamese partner over a possible sale of its loss-making Cambodia business, where two large stores are marginally profitable and 19 smaller outlets are running at a loss.

 

 

Vietnam: a bigger share of the retail business

MMVN, acquired on 15 May, is expected to contribute a full quarter's revenue and profit for the first time in the third quarter, having only been partially consolidated in the second.

 

It has already turned profitable, posting a net profit of 145 million baht net of 32 million baht in acquisition-related interest costs. Same-store sales growth has been running at double digits in local currency terms, and Thapanee said she expects MMVN's share of Modern Retail revenue to rise from around 15 per cent currently to roughly 50 per cent over time.

 

TRIS Rating has kept BJC's issuer rating at A/Stable.

 

 

Manufacturing: Bang Pa-In brought forward

BJC has moved up the start date for its "Bang Pa-In Next Gen Factory" to July 2028, aiming to add manufacturing capacity for its consumer, food and personal care businesses.

 

The site includes further land reserved for expansion, and management said the acceleration is intended to keep pace with growth in categories such as snacks, where sales rose 8.9 per cent in the first half against roughly 2 per cent market growth, and personal care, where the Parrot soap brand has become the top-selling beauty soap in Thailand and BJC is targeting the number one position across all soap categories by 2027.

 

 

Softer spots

Not every division improved. Sales in the Healthcare & Technical Supply Chain fell 3.3 per cent to 2,215 million baht, largely reflecting delayed government medical equipment budgets; management expects a pickup once the 2027 fiscal-year budget begins disbursement.

 

The Consumer Supply Chain, covering food, personal care and tissue products, grew sales just 0.6 per cent, though gross margin rose 170 basis points to 21.1 per cent.

 

Asked about the overall outlook for the second half, Thapanee said the combination of full packaging order books, accelerating store expansion and a full quarter of Vietnam consolidation should support revenue growth from the first half, even as some segments, including healthcare equipment and parts of the domestic retail market, continue to face uneven demand.