NEWS

Ülker Biscuit, Türkiye's largest publicly traded food company, closed 2018 with a turnover of TL 5.96 billion. The company's Turkish operations grew by 17%, with export and international snack operations growing by 41.5%.

In a statement sent to the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP), Ülker Biscuit announced that it had increased its sales by 23.4% in 2018, reaching TL 5.96 billion, and increased the net profit of its parent company by 76.4% to TL 905 million. By the end of 2018, the company had increased its EBITDA (Earnings Before Interests, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) by 28% to reach TL 939 million.

In a statement, Ülker’s CEO Mehmet Tütüncü said that Ülker Biscuit had continued its growth in 2018 with the support of its increased export and international operations. He also added that effectively implementing their organizational decisions, strengthening their market power with new product launches, structuring their organization to focus on added value, and the efficient use of available resources all had effects on the successful 2018 results.

Tütüncü reported the following information: 

• Our total snack turnover grew by 25% in 2018.
• Turkish operations grew by 17%, with export and international snack operations growing by 41.5%.
• Our total operational profitability (Earnings Before Interests, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization - EBITDA) grew by 28% in 2018, bringing our annual EBITDA margin to a record level of 15.8%.
• Export has been one of the major catalysts of our growth. The share of export and international operations in our total sales reached 38%.
• We started 2018 by strengthening our portfolio with innovations such as Ülker Flipz, Biskrem Extra, Fırından Mosaic Cake, O'lala Waffle Cake, Piko 5, and Godiva Masterpiece and continued without slowing down.
• Our plants in Türkiye have become the production base of Godiva tablet chocolates.
• In line with our goal of becoming a regional leader, we created significant synergies with biscuit and chocolate investments in Saudi Arabia and Egypt purchased by Yıldız Holding in 2016. In 2017, we purchased the Kazakhstan factory and acquired the McVitie’s distribution-production rights for Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and North African. Finally, in 2018, the acquisition of United Biscuits' IBC Saudi Arabia biscuit factory helped us continue to grow our export and international operations profitably."

Tütüncü went on to say that in 2019, Ülker Biscuit will continue to work with a waste-free production model to effectively and sustainably fight against inflation, to increase its efficiency and its domestic and brand investments, and to complete projects that create cost advantages.