Belgian supermarket group Delhaize Group performed very well in the first quarter of 2016: turnover increased by almost 6 %, which easily trumps all of the previous expectations.
Increased Belgian market share
Delhaize Group’s first quarter turnover reached 6.15 billion euro, a 5.7 % increase that would have been 4.3 % at constant exchange rates. Southeast Europe experienced a 10.8 % like-for-like turnover growth, while the United States and Belgium had 2.6 and 2.9 % like-for-like turnover increases respectively. The company’s underlying operating income grew 27.9 % to 221 million euro, while net profit more than tripled to 109 million euro.
“In the U.S., although we continued to see deflation, we are also realizing ongoing solid 3.7% real growth. In Belgium, we reported good comparable store sales growth of 2.9% and a 50 basis points improvement in our market share compared to the first quarter of last year”, CEO Frans Muller said. “Finally, our Southeastern European operations reported an outstanding performance. Although the group benefited from a slightly stronger gross margin mainly in the U.S., profitability was especially boosted by lower SG&A as a percentage of revenues in Belgium and Southeastern Europe.”
