Gudang Garam reports flat net profit

Gudang Garam reports flat net profit

JAKARTA: Indonesia's largest clove cigarette maker Gudang Garam on Friday announced a virtually flat net profit of Rp 2.09 trillion (US$234 million) for last year due to a rise in taxes.

It said pretax profit increased to Rp 3.01 trillion from Rp 2.98 trillion, while taxes rose to Rp 895 billion from Rp 874 billion.

The company booked an operating profit of Rp 3.46 trillion compared to Rp 3.39 trillion previously.

Sales were up at Rp 20.94 trillion in 2002 from Rp 17.97 trillion a year earlier, mainly due to price increases.

According to the Association of Clove Cigarette Producers, industry-wide production dropped to 177.05 billion cigarettes in 2002 from 199.65 billion a year earlier.

It said Gudang Garam's output declined to 60.21 billion cigarettes from 67.40 billion.

Gudang Garam maintained its leading position, with market share increasing slightly to 34 percent in 2002 compared to Sampoerna's 22 percent. -- AFP