Operating Margin vs Net Margin: Reading Two Profit Numbers on an IDX Annual Report
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7 min read
In the first quarter of 2022, Bukalapak (BUKA) reported a net profit of about Rp14.54 trillion. A quarter earlier, in the same business, it was losing money. Did the shopping app suddenly get wildly good at selling things?
No. Management said the jump came mainly from a gain in the value of an investment in Allo Bank (BBHI), not from the core business (Bisnis.com).
That is why an annual report has more than one profit number. This post explains operating margin vs net margin in plain words, shows both on an invented company, and tells you where to find each line in a real IDX report. It does not say any stock is a good or bad buy.
A margin is profit shown as a share of sales. You divide a profit number by revenue.
Revenue is all the money from selling goods or services. If a company sells Rp1.000 and keeps Rp100 as profit, its margin is 10%.
Margins make companies comparable. Rp100 billion of profit means one thing for a company with Rp500 billion of sales and another for a company with Rp5 trillion.
An income statement, also called a profit and loss statement, has several profit lines. Each one subtracts more costs. The two most useful are the operating profit and the net profit.
Operating profit is what is left after the costs of running the business. That means the cost of making the product, staff, rent, marketing and similar costs. It leaves out interest on debt and tax.
Operating margin is operating profit divided by revenue. Several finance guides describe it this way, and note that it sits before the effects of financing and taxes (Saylor Academy).
In Indonesian reports this line is usually called laba usaha. A loss on this line is rugi usaha.
Operating margin answers one question. When this company sells its product, how much does it keep after paying to run the business?
Net profit is the bottom line. It starts from operating profit, then adds and subtracts everything else: interest paid, interest earned, one-off gains or losses, and income tax.
Net margin is net profit divided by revenue.
In Indonesian reports this is the laba bersih or laba tahun berjalan. Indonesian sources describe laba bersih as profit after the applicable tax is subtracted (Bisnis.com).
Net margin answers a different question. After everything, including debt and tax, how much of each sales rupiah is truly left?
Let us use two invented companies. They are not real issuers. All numbers are NetWort arithmetic, in rupiah billions, and the 20% tax rate is only for illustration.
Both have revenue of Rp1.000 billion.
| Line | PT Warung Stabil | PT Tanah Untung |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Operating profit | 100 | 20 |
| Interest paid on debt | −40 | −40 |
| One-off gain from selling land | 0 | +200 |
| Profit before tax | 60 | 180 |
| Tax at 20% | −12 | −36 |
| Net profit | 48 | 144 |
| Operating margin | 10% | 2% |
| Net margin | 4,8% | 14,4% |
Look at the last two rows. If you only read net margin, PT Tanah Untung looks three times better. It earned Rp144 billion against Rp48 billion.
But its core business earned just Rp20 billion. Most of its profit came from selling land. That happens once. Next year there is no land to sell.
PT Warung Stabil looks smaller at the bottom line. Yet its everyday business is five times stronger. Operating margin shows that.
Net margin can sit above or below operating margin. Four things move it:
A good habit: when net margin and operating margin tell different stories, find out which line caused the gap. That line is the story.
Back to Bukalapak. These figures come from Indonesian media reports found through search on 20 October 2026. We could not open the company filings themselves, so treat the numbers as reported, not checked by us.
| Item (reported) | Amount |
|---|---|
| Revenue, full year 2021 | About Rp1,86 trillion |
| Operating loss, full year 2021 | About Rp1,7 trillion |
| Net loss, full year 2021 | About Rp1,67 trillion |
| Net profit, Q1 2022 | About Rp14,54 trillion |
Sources: Katadata and Bisnis.com.
Using NetWort arithmetic on those reported figures, the 2021 operating loss was about 91% of revenue. That means the core business was far from profitable. Then one quarter later the net profit was Rp14,54 trillion.
The reports say the swing came mainly from a gain on the Allo Bank investment. It was a gain on a holding, not a sign that app sales had grown many times over.
That is the lesson in one real case. A huge net margin can come from a line that is not the business. Always check operating profit next to it. You can see the stock's price history on the BUKA page.
You do not need to calculate anything by hand. Open the company's latest financial report on the IDX website. Look for the laporan laba rugi (income statement).
Find these lines:
We did not find an official IDX page that defines the exact line order, so confirm the layout in the report itself. Divide lines 2 and 5 by line 1. You now have both margins.
None of these gives a verdict. They give you better questions.
Open the Explore screener and pick two IDX companies from the same sector. Then open each latest report and work out both margins. Write down which company has the bigger gap between them, and find the line that causes it.