Spanish chain DIA saw its gross sales rise by 1.1% to €9.4 billion last year, according to accounts filed by the retailer this morning.
Like-for-like sales growth at the retailer were up 2.9% in 2014, with same store sales in emerging markets growing by 20.7%. Underlying EPS at the retailer grew by 8.9% (11.3% ex-currency).
At the end of the calendar year, the Spanish retailer operated a total of 7,306 stores, with 406 new openings taking place last year.
Additionally, following the acquisition of the El Arbol chain last year, it also now operates 437 El Arbol stores. Last year also saw the retailer exit the French market.
"Our prospects for 2015 include an ideal mix of growth and profit sustainability in our core markets," said chief executive Ricardo Curras. "In Spain, we will continue to explore opportunities to consolidate our market position, while continuing to rapidly expand our successful discounter format in Argentina and Brazil."
Commenting on the retailer's performance, Barclays European Food Retail Equity Research said that DIA’s results were "broadly as expected – which was always likely given that the company had already released key elements of the Iberian performance in a presentation several weeks ago.
"The three key points we would highlight would be: i) The pleasing EBITDA margin expansion in Emerging Markets (+47bps); ii) the amount of non-recurring costs (€44m), which are higher than we had expected – although not entirely surprising given the El Arbol acquisition; iii) Gross margin – which expanded by 50bps but would have declined by 50bps excluding FX and acquisitions."
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones.
