Retailer O'Key boosts Q2 revenue 21.5% to 33 bln rubles, as forecast
MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax) - Russian retailer O'Key boosted sales revenue 21.5% year-on-year in Q2 2013 to 33.087 billion rubles, the company said in a statement.
This was in line with the 33.03-33.1 billion rubles that analysts predicted in a consensus forecast for Interfax.
Revenue grew 19.3% in H1 2013 to 63.865 billion rubles.
Life-for-like (LfL) sales grew 9.6% year-on-year in Q2 as the average sales receipt grew 7.8% and customer traffic rose 1.7%.
"In Q2 2013 we delivered another strong set of LfL results. In a relatively stable trading environment we achieved a meaningful increase both in the number of purchases and in the size of our customers' average shopping basket," company CEO Patrick Longuet said.
Traffic growth picked up quarter-on-quarter and exceeded company expectations, he said. Traffic grew only 0.4% in Q1.
LfL earnings were up 7.5% for the first half, as the average sales receipt increased 6.4% and traffic 1.1%.
"We opened one hypermarket in the second quarter, increasing the selling space to 437,000 sq.m.. Our development pipeline has been expanding rapidly, and during the first six months of 2013 we signed 7 new contracts for the opening of future stores, 5 of which are hypermarkets, 2 are supermarkets, and we also secured 10 locations for the new project," Longuet said. All in all, there are 26 hypermarket and 11 supermarket projects in the works.
O'Key operates a chain of eponymous hypermarkets and O'Key Express supermarkets. It had 54 of the former and 31 of the latter at end-June.
Longuet has said that the company plans to open 10 new hypermarkets in 2013. He predicted that sales revenues could rise 21%-25% this year.
O'Key plans to open its first Da! discount outlet next year. The new store chain is oriented to Moscow and the surrounding region. The company plans to have opened a hundred of the stores in Moscow Region by 2016.