Riyadh, July 9 - Saudi Arabia's Almarai Co., the largest dairy company in the Gulf Arab region by market value, posted a 42.3 percent rise in second-quarter net profit on higher sales as it expands its business regionally.
The company made a net profit of 235.2 million riyals ($62.7 million) in the three months to June 30, up from 165.3 million riyals in the year-earlier period, topping two forecasts in a Reuters net profit survey last month.
The forecasts were for quarterly profit of 164.3 million riyals and 210 million riyals.
"These positive results are due to the success of the company's investment plans to achieve continuing growth in sales and net profits, and at diversifying its sources of revenue," Almarai said in the statement on the bourse website.
Almarai, which has been diversifying its revenue sources through acquisitions, said it would raise its investment budget to 6 billion riyals for the five years to 2013. It gave no further details.
The firm previously said it would spend 4.7 billion riyals during the five years to the end of 2011 to develop its foodstuff business across the Gulf Arab region.
Last year, Almarai began consolidating the earnings of two 2006 acquisitions, Western Bakeries and International Bakery Services Co. It paid 709 million riyals in stock for the companies.
The dairy firm is part of a group led by Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Co (MTC) that paid $6.1 billion last year for a licence to start Saudi Arabia's third mobile phone firm, Zain Saudi Arabia .
For the six months to June 30, Almarai's turnover rose 38.2 percent to 2.37 billion riyals and operating profit advanced 39.3 percent to 467.7 million riyals. It did not give second-quarter figures for these two indicators.
Based on Reuters data and calculations, second-quarter turnover rose by about 38 percent to 1.25 billion riyals and operating profit 43 percent to 273.2 million riyals.
That compared with turnover growth of 38.7 percent and operating profit rises of 34.5 percent in the first quarter of this year.