A strong focus on costs and more than encouraging initial results from Delhaize in Belgium helped Ahold Delhaize to achieve sales growth and margin improvement in the second quarter.
Future plan bears fruit
Sales grew 0.7 % to 22.3 billion euros in the second quarter of this year, but CEO Frans Muller said that would have been 1 % more excluding some negative calendar effects. The underlying operating margin improved slightly to 4.2 %. European sales rose by 4.3 % and the margin by 0.5 percentage points to 3.7 %. In the United States, sales were down 1.5 %.
The good initial results of Delhaize’s restructuring in Belgium – as in the first quarter – further contributed to sales growth and margin improvement. 108 of the 128 supermarkets have already been transferred to independent operators and Delhaize’s market share is already higher than before the announcement of the future plan in March last year, Muller said – without giving concrete figures.
In the Netherlands, Albert Heijn is experiencing the impact of the ban on tobacco sales in supermarkets: this will cost comparable store sales 2 to 3%, the retailer reports. However, the group is confidently sticking to full-year profit forecasts, with a profit margin of at least 4 %.
