Coles Myer sees first half sales jump
Australian retail group seeing benefits of recovery strategy
Coles Myer, Australia’s biggest retail group, continues to see the impact of the sales growth strategy aimed at boosting its competitiveness.
In the 26 weeks to January 23, group sales grew 17 per cent to A$18.3bn, with comparative sales up 4.9 per cent.
The group saw outstanding sales growth in its Target chain, up 8.5 per cent, as well as Kmart, up 7.5 per cent, and Officeworks, up 2.3 per cent. Food and liquor division sales grew 5.8 per cent, with comparative sales up 3.8 per cent.
Twenty new supermarkets and 10 liquor outlets opened in the half, with the new Coles Express format recording a sales increase nationally of 207.3 per cent, with comparative sales growth of 17.9 per cent. While higher fuel prices drove the increase “the business continued to receive a strong customer response and underlying volume trends continued to grow. Convenience store sales also recorded a solid increase, with the convenience business remaining a growth opportunity for Coles Express”.
Across the group, the key businesses of women’s, men’s, cosmetics, accessories, footwear, home and ‘Miss Shop’ all delivered solid increases. However, sales were not as strong in electrical and furniture, the categories most affected by the removal of shareholder discount.
Chief executive John Fletcher said: “Coles Myer has continued to perform strongly through the first half, including the important Christmas and New Year trading periods.
“We are delighted that sales across the Group continued to grow strongly over the half in a highly competitive retail market despite the removal of the Shareholder Discount Card.
[img r]Colesinterior.jpg[/img]”Kmart, Target and Officeworks have all delivered outstanding results in the face of tough competition, while the pace of growth in Food and liquor continued to be strong as we restructured our supermarket and liquor businesses. Myer improved sales even with the removal of the shareholder discount.
“We continue to make good progress against our strategy and towards our aspirational earnings goal of A$800m in the 2006 financial year.”
