JOLLIBEE, the country’s largest fast-food company, had a second straight quarterly profit increase as a new chain in China helped accelerate sales growth.

Fourth-quarter net income rose 20 percent to P660.5 million, the company said in a statement to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday. It rose 4.7 percent in the three months after declining for the previous three quarters.

Net sales climbed 18 percent to P11.88 billion, compared with a 14-percent gain in the third quarter. Sales rose 14 percent in the third quarter.

Sales accelerated as outlet expansion was boosted by the acquisition of the Hongzhuangyuan chain in China, which added 38 restaurants to Jollibee’s network. Profit was helped by slowing inflation, which has eased since reaching a 16-year high in August.

“We anticipated a strong fourth quarter with the acquisition and tapering inflation,” said Lovell Sarreal, an analyst at ATR-KimEng Securities Inc. in Manila.

Some Filipinos might also be switching to fast food from more expensive restaurants amid slowing economic growth.

“Because of the uncertainties, people may be cutting down on expenses, but they still have to eat,” Sarreal said. “We haven’t seen a slowdown in demand.”

‘‘Our system-wide sales in the Philippines grew by 11.3 percent, and in foreign operations by 74.6 percent that included the effect of our acquisition of the Hong-zhuangyuan restaurant chain in Beijing in October 2008,’’ said Jollibee chairman Tony Tan Caktiong. Jollibee’s foreign operations accounted for 15.9 percent of its system-wide sales in the fourth quarter last year compared with 10.7 percent in the same quarter a year ago.

“Our aim is to derive at least half of our revenues from outside of the Philippines at some point in the future, both from organic growth and acquisitions even as we expect our Philippine business to sustain healthy growth rate in the years to come,” Tan said.

Jollibee continued to make major long-term investments last year despite the deepening financial crisis.

The company invested P2.8 billion in capital expenditures in 2008, or 35 percent more that what it spent in 2007. It allotted P2.5 billion to acquire new businesses at the same time.

“These levels are so far the highest in our company’s history. These reflect our confidence in our long-term growth strategy even as we tackle the serious challengers of the moment and in the months ahead,” Tan said.

Jollibee chief finance officer Ysmael Baysa said the fourth-quarter profit margin of 52.3 percent last year was equal the level in the same period in 2007.

“The stabilization of our profit margins reflects the slowing down of raw material price increases and inflation rate, the impact of our cost improvement actions, and the effect of our price adjustments performed over a period of 16 months,” Baysa said. Jenniffer B. Austria, with Bloomberg