Supermarket giant, Coles, increased its food and liquor sales by 5.8 per cent to $7.3 billion in the first quarter.
Parent company, Wesfarmers, has described the lift as “pleasing.”
Coles recorded comparable food and liquor store sales growth of 4.3 per cent in the first three months of the 2015 financial year.
Excluding liquor, comparable food store sales increased 5.0 per cent.
Wesfarmers says tobacco excise increases and fresh produce inflation, due to tougher growing conditions partially offset, gains from easing food and liquor price deflation and ongoing investment.
Coles MD, John Durkan, said comparable sales growth for the quarter was driven by further value investments resulting in continued improvements in sales density, transactions, basket size, and fresh participation.
Officeworks’ strong performance continues, with the company delivering an eight per cent rise in sales to $403 million for the first quarter FY15.
Officeworks MD, Mark Ward, attributes the strong performance to the company’s ‘every channel’ approach.
“We want to ensure customers can choose to shop whenever, wherever and however they want so we’ve improved our offer across all channels and that’s really paying off,” Ward said.
However, the supermarket giant’s fuel and convenience store business, Coles Express, recorded a 2.3 per cent fall in total sales to $1.9 billion.
Wesfarmers says lower fuel prices during the quarter more than offset reduced fuel discounts after Coles and rival Woolworths agreed to the competition watchdog’s undertaking that they stop making fuel saving offers that were funded by other parts of their business.
Convenience store sales, excluding fuel sales, grew by 11.1 per cent, with like for like sales up 8.3 per cent.
Wesfarmers’ other businesses, Bunnings and Officeworks, achieved strong growth, while Kmart’s sales grew modestly but Target’s sales declined.
Target continues to be the poor performer in the group with total sales falling 4.6 per cent to $753 million.
Bunnings Warehouse sales rose 11 per cent to $2.2 billion, Officeworks’ sales climbed eight per cent and Kmart was up by 2.9 per cent, supported by good performances by the children’s home categories.
Wesfarmers’ MD, Richard Goyder, says the sales results were generally pleasing.
“During the quarter our retail portfolio continued to invest productivity improvements into lower pricing, enhance merchandise offers and customer service, as well as improve its store networks,” he said.
AAP
