Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Chemical Co on Wednesday reported a 2.52% year-on-year drop in net profit for the second quarter of 2018, recording SAR 27.8 million from SAR 28.5 million.

Quarter-on-Quarter, the company’s profits retreated by 51%, as compared with SAR 56.4 million in Q1-18, the company said in a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The decline in second-quarter profits was mainly driven by lower sales of explosives that have higher profit margin despite the growth in pharmaceutical sales that have lower profit margin, in addition to the increase in financial charges, according to the filing.

In the first half of 2018, net profit edged up 0.61% to SAR 84.24 million, compared to SAR 83.73 million in the six-month period of 2017.

Saudi Chemical previously posted a 2.2% increase in its profits during Q1-18, generating SAR 56.4 million, versus SAR 55.2 million during Q1-17