Metro Group has seen like-for-like sales growth of 0.1% across its operations for the first quarter of the year, reporting €17 billion in sales for the period.
While this was down 0.4% in local currency terms, the previous year’s total included sales at Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam, which has now been sold. ‘Adjusted for this portfolio effect, business in the Christmas quarter developed positively,’ Metro Group said in a statement.
“All in all we performed solidly in the Christmas quarter in a challenging market environment. We maintain our forecast for the financial year 2016/17,” said Olaf Koch, Chairman of the Management Board of Metro AG.
Sales at its Metro Cash & Carry and Media-Saturn operations were up marginally on the prior year, however Real saw ‘declining sales’.
Like-for-like sales at Metro Cash & Carry were up 0.7% in Q1, while at Real, they fell 1.7%. Media-Saturn 0.0% growth in like-for-like sales.
In terms of the cash and carry business, Metro said that ‘sales in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands declined due to the ongoing transformation and the challenging market environment. By contrast, like-for-like sales in Spain, Turkey and China performed well.’
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
