Fashion
China Jo-Jo Drugstores says its profits soared 19.5 per cent in the December quarter, with same store sales up 24.3 per cent
The US-listed, China-based company which retails and wholesales pharmaceutical and health care products through its own online and retail pharmacies, said online sales jumped 110.6 per cent to $4.4 million. Retail drugstore sales rose $2.16 million.
Gross profit rose by $3.003 million, or 1677 per cent year-on-year. It converted a net quarterly loss of $8.7 million in the December 2013 quarter to a modest profit of $127,525 last quarter.
“Our retail drugstores sale growth rate is more than twice of the industry average,” the company said in a statement.
“By acquiring Sanhao Pharmacy during the recent quarter, selecting products catering to local community and continuing to provide quality in-store service such as doctors’ in-store clinics service, we expect to further strengthen our competitive advantage in Hangzhou and Zhejiang Province.”
The company said expanded cooperation with business-to-consumer online vendors, including Taobao, JD.com and Amazon.com had boosted its online performance.
“In addition, we have signed a service agreement with Alipay (China) Internet Technology to launch an online payment service for its customers, which gives us a great opportunity to get access to Alipay’s over 300 million registered users. We expect online pharmacy sales will continue to grow fast in the future, especially considering the potential authorisation of the online sale of prescription drugs in 2015,” the statement said.
Lei Liu, chairman and CEO said the company was heartened to have delivered a solid performance compared to last year’s large deficits.
“What’s more exciting is the rapid increase in our eCommerce revenue, which greatly contributed to our total revenue. In the next two to three years, the online pharmacy sales will probably exceed our retail drugstore sales and make the company one of the leading online pharmacy stores in China.
“Now is only a turning point. Going forward, we will continue to focus our efforts on developing eCommerce opportunities and drive our physical stores network and sales growth.”
As of December 31, the company had 60 retail pharmacies in Hangzhou.
