MANILA, Philippines—The pre-need industry’s net income rose 36.7 percent to P2.1 billion in 2021, as both sales value and volume increased. The latest Insurance Commission (IC) data showed that the total bottom line of the country’s 12 pre-need players last year climbed by over a third from P1.5 billion in 2020. Their combined premium income…
Eager to move on from the pandemic, Filipino consumers were raring to spend more on retail shopping and “large” items such as cars and appliances on expectations they would earn more over the next year, a new survey showed. Data from the Q1 2022 Consumer Pulse Study by insights company TransUnion revealed a shift in…
In previous columns, I highlighted how the pandemic affected the Philippine property sector. At the height of this crisis, we saw negative office take up, correction of condominium rents and prices, and decline in mall space rents due to substantial drop in consumer traffic. In the past quarter however, property developers and investors are aggressively…
In January 2020, companies affiliated with the Philippine Alliance for Recycling and Materials Sustainability (PARMS) joined the “Zero Waste to Nature: Ambisyon 2030” (ZWTN 2030). In doing so, they pledged to observe more sustainable ways so that, at the turn of the decade, they can truly achieve the vision of a zero waste Philippines. Ambisyon…
In recent years, the world woke up to the alarming reality that the earth is ailing, and that this problem has been brought about by our own hands. Unsustainable practices, including the mismanagement of plastic waste, has led to a global and local challenge for everyone. The Philippines alone generates 2.7 million tons of plastic…
Filipinos living or working abroad never faltered in their commitment to send more money back home despite the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, jacking up cash remittances to the Philippines to a fresh high of $31.4 billion in 2021. In a statement on Tuesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said cash remittances coursed through banks rose…
The rate of increase in the prices of basic goods and services in the Philippines settled at 3 percent year-on-year in January, slowing down for the fifth month in a row from 4.4 percent last August through 3.2 percent in December, based on 2018 prices of consumer goods. Reckoned with the previous base year of…
The inflow of US dollars from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) is shoring up the Philippines’ external position, with personal remittances growing 5.3 percent year-on-year in the 11 months ending Nov. 30 last year. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said January to November remittances reached in 2021 from $29.99 billion in the same period of…
We asked two top market research practitioners—NielsenIQ managing director for Myanmar, Vietnam and Philippines Patrick Cua and Kantar Philippines president Gary de Ocampo—to share about consumer behaviors which they have uncovered in 2021 and their implications in 2022. Here are their views: Q: What key changes in consumer behavior have you decoded during the pandemic…
The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (Campi) is expecting to end the year with a growth of around 20 percent, which they hope to raise even further in 2022. “By year-end, [we] expect around a 20-percent [growth],” said Campi president Rommel Gutierrez in a Viber message when asked for the group’s year-end…