Philippines’ Wilcon Depot pushes for 100 stores by 2025

It currently has 60 stores across the country.

Philippines’ home improvement retailer Wilcon Depot is planning to open 100 stores by 2025 despite pandemic challenges, executive director Lorraine Belo-Cincochan revealed in the company’s annual stockholder’s meeting.

The company’s net sales and net income declined in 2020, but its performance turned around in Q1 2021, the company said in a bourse filing. In 2020, all of the company’s stores in Luzon island were closed for two months in view of the quarantine from mid-March to 15 May 2020.

The company said that it did not lay off or furlough employees even during the period that 85% of its stores were closed, and that they were amongst the first to order vaccines for its employees  for free with an equal quantity donated to the government.

Started in 1977 as a 60-sqm hardware store, Wilcon currently boasts a 60-store network across the Philippines with an average size of 10,000 sqm per store. It is also the only publicly listed company in its sector.