Swedish retailer ICA has said that sales in its domestic stores rose by 1.6% in December 2016, compared to the previous year. Like-for-like sales were up 1.1%.
Growth was reported right across the group’s store portfolio, with its ICA Nära operation posting the highest like-for-like increase, of 1.8%.
Its ICA Supermarket operation saw a like-for-like increase of 1.5%, while ICA Kvantum and Maxi ICA Stormarknad saw LFL gains of 1.2% and 0.5% respectively.
In December Sales in its Swedish stores totalled SEK 10,498 million excluding VAT, ‘which is an increase of 1.6% compared with the same month in the previous year,’ the retailer said.
‘Sales in January-December 2016 amounted to SEK 110,936 million, an increase of 2.4% compared with the previous year.’
Commenting on its performance, Barclays European Food Retail Equity Research said, ‘These modest performances - mainly related to the decelerating food inflation and the fierce competitive environment in Sweden - are supportive to our cautious view regarding ICA’s earnings momentum.’
© 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.
