Ahold Delhaize, a major operator of supermarket chains in the United States and Europe, has reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter sales, driven by a surge in online orders during the pandemic.
In the quarter ending December 31, Ahold said its sales rose 18% to €19.6 billion, topping the €18.5 billion seen in a company-compiled consensus.
Underlying operating income in the period was €811 million, also beating a consensus forecast of €771 million.
Net consumer online sales jumped 84% to €2.6 billion, with increases of 129% in the United States and 73% in Europe, Ahold said.
Earlier this week, Ahold Delhaize agreed to take over 39 stores from the Deen chain in the Netherlands as part of a larger deal to buy and dissolve Deen.
'Big Growth'
"When you talk about what we are doing, on food and non-food platforms, it's big growth on all fronts," chief financial officer Natalie Knight said in an interview.
Ahold expects online sales growth to continue to outpace traditional sales growth this year.
"We definitely believe we are going to continue to see very strong online growth in sales going forward. We are projecting a further growth of 30% in 2021, that includes 60% in the U.S," she said.
Investments last year in distribution networks and pick up points for online orders, as well as other areas, would help boost capacity and increase sales, Knight said.
"It's because we know that last year a lot of growth was still hampered by capacity ... we are continuing to build out capacity, so we are very confident the trend is going to continue," Knight said.
Online Sales
At its online non-food retailer Bol.com, which operates in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, sales were projected to hit €5 billion for the first time in 2021, Knight said.
"Last year our goal was €3.5 billion. We hit €4.3 billion. Now for 2021 we are going to call out the €5 billion mark," she said.
In its group outlook for 2021, Ahold said COVID-19 continued to create significant uncertainty and that a reduced number of reporting weeks in 2021 "will impact 2021 results."
In 2021, the underlying operating margin is expected to be at least 4% and underlying per share earnings will grow by "mid- to high-single digits relative to 2019," it said in a statement.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
