THAILAND. Airports of Thailand (AOT) today reported a -25.25% slump in net profit for the year ended September 2014 to THB12,220.37 million and a -4.56% fall in total revenues. But non-aeronautical revenues, and particularly duty free shopping, defied the downward trend
Total expenses rose +19.84%, largely due to a reversal of an impairment loss recognised in the prior year and an increase in depreciation expenses in the current year.
Thailand’s political upheaval of late 2013 and early 2014 hit the country’s tourism industry hard, AOT said, with a sharp decrease in the number of Chinese group tourists particularly damaging. However the number of tourists in the latter half of 2014 has increased as the political situation settled down, AOT said.
 |
While aeronautical revenues slipped by -0.39%, non-aeronautical turnover increased by +5.81% to THB 15,692.38 million, an impressive performance in a troubled market. Non-aeronautical revenues’ share of total turnover climbed two points to 42%.
Concession revenues increased by +5.13% to THB9,776.70 million. AOT said that the main driver of the increase in non-aeronautical revenues was a THB305.27 million increase in the revenue sharing from duty free shops run by King Power International Group.
Speaking to The Moodie Report in mid-October, King Power International Group Senior Executive Vice President Susan Whelan said: “We expect group sales [for calendar 2014] to be +4% up on last year, despite the drop in traffic during the first nine months of 2014.
 |
(Above and below): An excellent performance by King Power International Group in difficult conditions helped offset some of AOT’s losses elsewhere |
“Passenger traffic for January to August declined by-12.3%. The impact of the political situation was less noticeable in the first quarter (-8.9%) but became more significant after the February political activities. The second quarter was down -15.6% but traffic is bouncing back, bringing the year to date to -12.3%. There has been a noticeable improvement in October traffic to date.”
 |
 |
While Chinese passenger numbers fell by an alarming 37.2% for the January to August period, sales to the nationality fell by only -9.7% while spend per head rose +37.3% to US$90.21, with a spend per invoice of US$166.54. The Chinese contribute 31.2% of duty free sales at the airport, Whelan said.
 |
 |
Susan Whelan: “The second quarter was down -15.6% but traffic is bouncing back, bringing the year to date to -12.3%.” |
 |
Click on the above to view the enlarged image (then hover over graphs with your cursor and click for full detail) |
