Russian retailer X5 Retail Group NV (FIVE.L: News ) Friday reported a 41 percent increase in second-quarter net retail sales in Russian ruble terms, helped mainly by the acquisition of Kopeyka stores and due to the strong performance at soft discounters and supermarkets segments. In US Dollar terms, the growth was 52 percent.
Organic sales increased 25 percent in Russian ruble terms, while Kopeyka contributed about 16 percent to the company’s consolidated net retail sales growth. The retailer said its like-for-like or LFL, sales improved 10 percent from the previous year, on strong supermarkets performance, driven by 9 percent traffic growth.
The soft discounters segment recorded a 9 percent LFL sales growth, and the supermarkets segment contributed an 18 percent rise in LFL sales.
In the second quarter, net retail sales were 112.2 billion Russian rubles, up from 79.76 billion Russian rubles last year. In US Dollar basis, net retail sales surged to $4.01 billion from $2.64 billion in the prior year. Net retail sales represent revenue from operations of X5 managed stores excluding VAT.
Andrei Gusev, CEO of the company said, “X5 delivered RUR consolidated net retail sales growth of 41% year-on-year for the second quarter 2011, on the back of healthy organic performance at soft discounters and supermarkets and the contribution from acquired Kopeyka stores.”
X5 Retail noted that Russian retail market sequential growth slowed somewhat in the second quarter, as consumer income declined in real terms. “We expect this trend to continue in Q3 2011, after which we expect stronger consumer demand in the fourth quarter,” the company stated.
Looking ahead, X5 said it expects 2011 Russian ruble gross retail sales growth to be about 40 percent.
The company is scheduled to announce its financial results for the first half on August 25.
Source : RTT News
