Warehouse reports first quarter sales figures

Tuesday 7th November 2000

The eagerly awaited Warehouse quarterly sales figures that include sales from the recently acquired Clint's Crazy Bargain Stores and Silly Solly's were released today.

Total unaudited first quarter sales for the three months ended 31/10/2000 were $353.2 million, a figure that is $49.1m, or 16.1% above sales of the same time period last year.

Here's a breakdown of the different divisions sales:

- Warehouse retail chain. First quarter unaudited sales of $235 million. A 11.9% increase from the same quarter last year.
- Warehouse Stationary. First quarter unaudited sales of $19.2 million. A 46.6% increase from the same quarter last year.
- Clint's & Solly's. Three months ended 31/10/2000 unaudited sales of NZD$99 million (AUD$75.4m). A 22.2% increase (in NZ dollar terms) or a 15.8% increase (In Australian dollar terms) from the same quarter last year.

The Warehouse has opened five new stores and expanded six stores in the last quarter alone. As at October 31st, The Warehouse retail chain boasted 71 stores with 283,325 square metres of retail space. Weighted average sales per square metre for the twelve months ended 31/10/2000 were $4,025 compared to $3,844 in October 1999.

Same-store sales figures for Warehouse retail stores were 4.4% higher for the quarter. The Warehouse said that this smaller increase was due to a difficult economic environment and the aggressive expansion of new stores, which cannibalised sales from nearby Warehouse stores.

And their expansion plans haven't ended as well. It was announced that a further three Warehouse retail stores would be opened in November, Warehouse Stationary would open three new stores by the end of the year and Clint's and Solly's would open two larger format stores in December.

The Warehouse also reported that it sold over 17,000 Gold Pre-Paid mobile phones in the quarter and that of the 185,000 handsets sold since the product was launched, 155,000 customers were considered to be active subscribers. However, the Warehouse did not include the handset sales in their report.

The market had a muted response to the sales figures, and Warehouse shares were lately trading at around $6.16.

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