Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday, 7 February 2020 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
A focus on strengthening core business operations has enabled Expolanka Plc to record revenue of Rs. 27.8 billion during the third quarter of its financial year, noted a statement from the company this week. Expolanka highlighted agility and a customer-focused approach as key to maintaining its operations in an externally challenging business environment for its primary logistics and travel sectors.
The group recorded a profit of Rs. 4.9 billion and a Profit After Tax of Rs. 403 million for the quarter.
Expolanka’s performance is primarily driven by its logistics sector, which generated revenue of Rs. 26.5 billion, in line with the previous year.
Gross profit was Rs 4.5 billion, marginally below last year’s figure. The statement noted that despite the air freight industry continuing to remain somewhat volatile, the company was able to maintain stability in its operating volumes during the period.
Maintaining its performance in the ocean freight segment, Expolanka continued to perform steadily in this area of its operations. Transpacific operations maintained their performance during the quarter amid margin challenges and other external factors, enabling the North America trade lane to return stable results during the year. Intra-Asia and Europe Trade Lanes performed to expectation, augmenting the sector’s overall business.
Successful efforts in operations- and service-innovation-related efficiencies have led to the group’s warehousing operations growing consistently during the quarter.
Continuing its efforts with the implementation of its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, the company noted that it had made steady progress with the tool’s deployment across its operation. Furthermore, the company had identified that it is now looking at leveraging these investments to deliver increased efficiencies to its overall business performance.
The statement noted that the leisure sector’s performance continued to be weighed down by the challenges faced in the inbound and vacation segments of the operation. The core corporate travel business segment remained stable and the sector delivered a gross profit of Rs. 278 million for the quarter, enabling stabilisation of its Profit after Tax at Rs. 35 million. The business’ fundamental operations remain strong and are likely to overcome the performance of this transitionary period.
Meanwhile, Expol-anka’s investment sector contributed a further Rs. 837 million towards group turnover during the quarter. The sector includes the group’s export operations, IT services and corporate office and it continues to drive operational and cost efficiencies while providing these support services.
“As a business, we are operating in a challenging business environment, with several external factors having impacted our business during the year,” said Expolanka Group CEO Hanif Yusoof in a message to shareholders.
“However, we remained resilient in our efforts to focus on core business operations, drive growth and bring in operational efficiencies.
“While the immediate short term ahead for the group will remain challenging due to global headwinds affecting our industry, we will continue to direct our efforts towards growth, efficiency and innovation over the next quarter as one of Sri Lanka’s leading corporates.”
