By Valentine Hilaire and Isabel Woodford
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico's FEMSA , which controls one of the largest Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) bottlers and a string of convenience store chains, posted a 22% jump in its first-quarter revenue to 180 billion pesos on Friday, driven by strong sales in its key businesses.
On the back of the company's sale of its stake in Dutch beer giant Heineken (OTC:HEINY) in February, net profit surged over eight times in the period, to 50.3 billion pesos ($2.8 billion) compared to the same period last year.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, or core earnings, for the quarter rose 12.51% to 22.16 billion pesos, boosted by 18.3% growth in same-store-sales in FEMSA's Oxxo convenience stores across Latin America.
Sales in the region were seen "widely outpacing the industry," Group CEO Daniel Rodriguez said in a statement.
Francisco Camacho, FEMSA's corporate director, warned in an earnings call later Friday that the Oxxo sales bump was unusually healthy rather than "the new normal."
The company's fintech arm, Spin by Oxxo, saw growth of 1.1 million new users in the quarter, taking its total user base to 6.4 million, while total monthly transactions were up 22%.
Earlier this week, the company's Coca-Cola FEMSA subsidiary reported a 35% bump in quarterly net income, following strong growth in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and Uruguay.
FEMSA's acquisition of Swiss kiosk operator Valora in the summer also provided a boost to first-quarter results, generating around 10.1 billion pesos in new revenue - or around 10% of the company's total.
The company will now prioritize expansion of Valora into Germany this year, said director of strategy Eugenio Garza y Garza, adding that an "aggressive" roll-out would come once inflation was under control, without offering a concrete timeline.
($1 = 18.0201 pesos by end-March)