Engy Al-Diwany, director of consumer sector research at Beltone Financial, said: All retail companies in the Saudi market It witnessed strong revenue growth in the first half of 2022, amounting to regarding 15% in Savola and Almarai and 25% in SADAFCO, supported by price increases.
Engy Al-Diwani added, in an interview with Al-Arabiya, today, Wednesday, that companies, including Savola, passed a lot of the cost increase to consumers, especially edible oils and sugar, which contributed to supporting the strong growth of the company’s revenues.
The Director of Consumer Sector Research stated that SADAFCO achieved significant growth in revenues due to price increases in dairy and ice cream and the opening of a new ice cream factory, which contributed to increasing profits, with SADAFCO pursuing an expansionary policy and directing part of the production outside the Kingdom.
Engy Al-Diwani added that Almarai’s revenues grew inside and outside Saudi Arabia in the markets of Egypt and Jordan, and all of these markets witnessed a recovery in demand, and the purchasing power of the Saudi consumer, as a result of the growth of the gross domestic product, contributed to supporting the consumer sector in light of the return of religious tourism and schools.
She explained that the prices of inputs increased by more than 20% from last year, and this increase was absorbed through the pricing policy of companies.
And Engy Al-Diwani expected the intensity of competition during the next year, given that all food commodity prices began to decline gradually as a result of the regularity of supply chains and the return of grain shipments from Ukrainian ports.
She added that these factors lead to a slight decrease in input prices during the next year, and therefore companies may pass these decreases on to the consumer, which causes competitive pressures by offering discounts on goods in order for each company to maintain its market share.
