Swedish retailer ICA Gruppen has posted 2.6% year-on-year growth in store sales, to SEK31.3 billion (€3.07 billion) excluding VAT, in the three months ended March 2021.
Maxi ICA Stormarknad emerged as the strongest performer within the group in this period, with sales amounting to SEK10.1 billion, up 4.9% on a like-for-like basis.
Its ICA Nära convenience stores reported like-for-like sales growth of 3.4% to SEK4.6 billion.
Elsewhere, ICA Kvantum posted a 2.1% growth in like-for-like sales to SEK 7.7 billion, while ICA Supermarket saw a marginal increase of 0.1% to SEK8.9 billion.
Performance In March
In March 2021 alone, total sales amounted to SEK11.2 billion (€) excluding VAT, up 1% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
Like-for-like store sales for the month increased by 0.8% compared to last year.
The retailer estimated a positive calendar effect of 3.2% for the month due to Easter falling slightly earlier than last year; also, in March 2020, sales were boosted by substantial stockpiling due to the pandemic.
Maxi ICA Stormarknad emerged as the top performer for the month, with like-for-like sales up 2.7% and amounting to SEK3.6 billion.
ICA Kvantum and ICA Nära reported like-for-like sales growth of 0.3% and 0.2%, while ICA Supermarket saw a like-for-like sales decline of 0.6%.
The retailer reported a 1.9% year-on-year increase in sales to SEK9.8 billion (€970 million) in February of this year and estimated a negative calendar effect of 3.6% for the month due to the leap day last year.
As of 31 March 2021, the number of stores operated by ICA was 1,266. [Pic:©Roland Magnusson/123RF.COM]
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
