PT Japfa Comfeed Indonesia (JPFA) recorded in the first half of this year IDR580.55 billion (US$60.6 million) net profit, a 79.7% jump on-year.

The significant growth in profit is attributed to higher net revenue in the first six months, which stood at IDR8.46 trillion (US$881 million), up by 8.3% from a year earlier, with the biggest contribution coming from its animal feed division.

The publicly listed company currently has eight divisions, consisting of animal feed, day-old chicks, chicken farming, cow farming, consumer products, aquaculture, trade and other, which includes property, plantations and livestock vaccine production.

Income from the animal feed division amounted to 43.9% of net revenue, followed by chicken farming with 28.7% and aquaculture with 8.8%. The chicken farming division recorded the highest growth in this year's first half, up 92% to IDR2.43 trillion (US$253 million) from 2011.

Expansions by Japfa's subsidiaries last year boosted growth, Japfa senior vice president and deputy corporate finance head, Putut Djagiri said on Tuesday (Sep 25).

Company subsidiaries in the chicken farming industry, PT Ciomas Adisatwa and PT Multiphala Adiputra, acquired poultry companies PT Primatama Karya Persada and PT Adiguna Bintang Lestari for IDR350 billion (US$36 million) and IDR7.7 billion (US$801,000), respectively last year. As of now, Japfa operates 47 chicken breeder units.

Japfa currently has a total production capacity of around 1.6 million tonnes of animal feed annually and claims to hold 23% of the animal feed market share in the country. The company uses about 10% of the production volume for internal breeding operations and allocates the rest for sales to local farmers and independent distributors.

The company reports that income from its consumer products division fell by 78.4% on-year to IDR213.72 billion (US$22 million) in the first six months of this year. The sale of subsidiary PT So Good Food in April was mainly behind the fall.

Last April, Japfa sold all of its shares in So Good Food, mostly known for its chicken nugget products, to affiliated companies Jupiter Foods Pte. Ltd. and Annona Food Pte. Ltd. for US$100 million.

PT Bahana Securities analyst Aditya Eka Prakasa predicted that Japfa's chicken farming division would continue to boost the company's revenue as the average price of chicken had reached IDR17,483 (US$1.82) each, 14% higher from last year.