Riyadh – Mubasher: Fawaz Abdulaziz AlHokair on Thursday reported a sharp decline in its net profits for the three-month period ended 31 March 2018, citing lower sales and higher cost of sales.

AlHokair logged SAR 103.49 million ($27.59 million) in net profits in Q1-18, down 75.67% year-on-year from SAR 425.3 million ($113.38 million).

Earnings per share (EPS) amounted to SAR 0.49 for the period from January to March versus SAR 2.03 in the year-ago period, AlHokair said in a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The retail company attributed its profit drop to an 8.6% decline in sales and higher cost of sales, as well as a decrease of SAR 64.4 million in other operating income due to foreign exchange losses. Rising losses to SAR 9.9 million from an investment in an associate also contributed to the decline.

Gross profit fell 19.94% to SAR 1.215 billion in Q1-18 from SAR 1.517 billion in the first three months of 2017.

AlHokair achieved total revenue of SAR 6.116 billion during the three-month period ended 31 March, down 8.6% from SAR 6.619 billion in the same period of 2017.

AlHokair’s stock closed Thursday in the green, adding 0.58% to close at SAR 25.90.