Wilcon ramps up expansion to hit 100-store goal this year

MANILA, Philippines — Home improvement and construction supplies retailer Wilcon Depot Inc. is ramping up its expansion this year to hit its 100-store target.

Wilcon president and CEO Lorraine Belo-Cincochan said two Do It Wilcon (DIW) branches and eight depot format stores will open this year.

Wilcon opened nine new stores in 2023 or seven depots and two Home Essentials, ending the year with 90 branches.

“We continue to pursue our 100-store goal by 2024, a year earlier than initially planned. We believe that we have to be in the best position to serve our market once home improvement spending rekindles,” Belo-Cincochan said.

Wilcon previously aimed to have 100 operating stores nationwide by 2025, but decided to advance its goal and open the 100th store by this year instead.

“We have gotten the approval for the use of “Do It Wilcon” as an additional trade name and we shall be completing the renaming of our Home Essentials branches into DIW in 2024,” Belo-Cincochan said.

“Anchoring on our 47-year experience in this sector, we remain confident that we will be able to adapt to the post-COVID-19 home improvement market by being consistently customer-centric and improving our operations to continually give excellent value to our customers even as we expand our market reach,” she said.

Wilcon saw net income decline by 9.5 percent year-on-year to P3.48 billion in 2023 because of the higher increase in operating expenses versus the gross profit and other income improvement.

Net sales, however, grew by 3.1 percent to P34.60 billion due to the sales generated from the new stores.

“The softness of the market persisted through the fourth quarter, which led to a modest growth in our topline for the year, 100 percent of which was contributed by the new stores,”  Belo-Cincochan said.