Almarai Third Quarter Earnings Up 24%

Saudi Arabia's leading dairy firm Almarai has reported a 23.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) increase in third quarter net income to SAR363.4mn (US$96.9mn). It is believed that Almarai's headline performance could have been even stronger had the effects of swine flu not affected the usual influx (typically around 1mn) of pilgrimage visitors to the kingdom. Almarai's Q3 sales revenues grew 11.4% y-o-y compared to 16% y-o-y in Q2. While we expect regional expansion to remain a priority, BMI believes that the multi-category dairy giant has by no means exhausted value and volume growth opportunities domestically. Through to 2014, we expect food consumption

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