Russian retailer Lenta has posted a 5.0% increase in sales in the first quarter of its financial year.
The retailer’s performance was driven by a 3.8% increase in traffic to its stores, and a retail ticket increase of 1.2%.
The group said that total sales grew by 6.0% in the first quarter of the year, to RUB 99.0 billion (€1.37 billion).
It opened one hypermarket in the period, while one hypermarket and four supermarkets were closed, leaving the retailer with a total store count of 375 stores as of 31 March 2019, comprising 244 hypermarkets and 131 supermarkets.
Sales Performance
“Lenta delivered a strong retail sales performance in the first quarter of 2019 with total retail sales up by 10%, which was double selling space growth,” commented Herman Tinga, Lenta’s chief executive.
“Lenta’s Like-for-like retail sales growth of 5% was the fastest we have seen in the last three years. Although the economic environment remains weak, we are encouraged by impressive inflows of new customers which enabled this acceleration in like-for-like sales. I am particularly pleased with the rapid progress in our supermarkets where like-for-like retail sales growth accelerated to 22% driven by 19% traffic growth,” Tinga added.
The chief executive noted that while market conditions in Russia are “still challenging”, promotional activity in the country is stabilising. In addition the business’ expansion plans remain unchanged.
“We also closed a small number of underperforming leased stores and expect this to have a positive effect on future profitability,” said Tinga.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
