Russian retailer Lenta posted a total sales increase of 17.2% in Q1 2017 to RUR 77.9 billion (€1.29 billion), compared with RUR 66.5 billion (€1.1 billion) in Q1 2016.
Lenta also reported a like-for-like increase of 1.7% compared to the same period last year.
Store Openings
The retailer's total store count reached 247 (195 hypermarkets, 52 supermarkets) up from 180 in Q1 2016. Lenta also posted a selling space increase of 30.3% against Q1 2016.
Lenta confirmed its 2017 plans to open 30 new hypermarkets and 50 new supermarkets and its long-term growth targets for 2017-2020 remain unchanged.
“The macro and consumer environment for food retail remained challenging in the first quarter of 2017 [...] We hope to see some improvement in the environment later in the year and are putting sales initiatives in place to capitalise on this to deliver a pick-up in sales growth," said Lenta CEO Jan Dunning.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Gavin Ryan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.