Indonesia Daily Focus December 4, 2020
Consumer – 2021 outlook: Light at the end of the tunnel
Gaining confidence that domestic economy will recover
The
COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet. However, the development of COVID-19
vaccine brings a positive sentiment and also higher hopes that economic
activities will recover soon. Our economist predicts Indonesia’s
private consumption growth to fall by 2.24% YoY in 2020F but improve by
4.07% YoY in 2021F. All in all, we believe that the worst is already
behind us, and we expect a further recovery in domestic consumption.
Expecting relatively stable margin due to stronger Rupiah outlook
Starting
from the third quarter of this year, we’ve noted increases in some
commodities prices. For now, we still believe that consumer companies
under our coverage can keep their FY21F profitability relatively stable
or just slightly down from our FY20F gross margin estimates. We note
that most of big consumer companies have diversified business segments,
enabling them to be more resilient to volatility. Furthermore, as they
are selling staples-related products, we believe that they could pass on
increased material costs to customers. In addition, we believe that the
rising CPO prices could help boost purchasing power recovery as
plantation industry in Indonesia is a labor-intensive industry.
Nevertheless, we expect stronger Rupiah to bolster consumer companies’
profitability margin in 2021.
Lack of positive catalysts weighs on recent share price performance but company with visionary view will remain favorites
Amid
this year’s uncertainties due to COVID-19 pandemic, the share prices of
consumer companies under our coverage also got hurt. We believe that
the recent pullback of consumer stocks is due to the lack of positive
catalysts for people’s purchasing power. However, as we mentioned
before, we believe that the economic reopening will bring people to back
to work, translating into normalized income household.
Keep our positive stance on consumer sector
As
we expect that COVID-19 vaccination program is around the corner, we
believe that economic activities will gradually recover next year, hence
leading to better purchasing power as well as consumer companies’
better sales. In the meanwhile, we also expect consumer companies to
maintain their profitability for next year. We project that stronger
Rupiah outlook could offset some rising commodities prices. We have Buy
recommendation for ICBP, INDF, UNVR and Trading Buy recommendation for
KLBF.
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