Power retailer Manila Electric Co. is looking at a 4-percent growth in sales volume this year, driven by the commercial segment.
Meralco investor relations head Randwil Dindo Macaranas said during the PSE Star Investors Day forum that sales volume went by two percent in the first quarter.
Energy sales volumes in the first quarter rose to 11,287 gigawatt-hours from 11,069 GWh in the same period last year.
“Although we did end the first quarter at 2 percent, we’d like to improve that for the rest of the year and bump that at up to 4 percent by yearend. Everyone is feeling…It’s a lot warmer now and that should improve our volumes,” Macaranas said.
He said April sales were already slightly above 2 percent, and “we’d like to see that further improve in the months ahead.”
Macaranas said residential electricity sales were normalizing as customers went back to offices “as we have seen also in the first quarter trends.”
“With increased mobility obviously there’s a shift also to the commercial segment, but for residential it’s a large part of the function of temperature so with warmer temperatures, as it gets hotter, normally families, households tend to use more air conditioning so that they prioritize comfort,” he said.
“Hopefully, that helps pumps up the residential segment from a decline of three percent,” Macaranas said.
Residential sales volumes slipped to 3,701 GWh in the first quarter, while the industrial segment saw sales decline 3 percent from 3,443 GWh to 3,336 GWh on impact of global economic headwinds and inflation.
Macaranas said Meralco expects commercial sales to exceed the pre-pandemic levels with the continued reopening of the economy and return spending, return to work and return to school.
Commercial sales volumes went up 11 percent to 4,213 GWh in the first quarter from 3,781 GWh a year earlier following the resumption of face-to-face classes and growth in hotels, restaurants and real estate sectors.
Macaranas said he expects industrial sales to recover after a decline in the first quarter.
“The decline in particular for the first quarter is largely because of economic headwinds, inflation and also higher import cost. So overall, hopefully, it improves in the second half of the year as the year progresses. But overall, we’re still quite positive that we can reach that four percent volume growth,” he said.
Meralco, the country’s biggest power distributor, ended the first quarter with a consolidated customer count of 7.7 million, up 3 percent from a year earlier.