Poundland, the UK-based parent company of single price retailer Dealz, has posted a sales increase of 11.8% (on a constant currency basis) for the 13 week period to 29 March.
Sales, which came in at £1.11 billion, were up 2.4% on a like for like basis.
In its trading statement, released this morning, Poundland said that it intended to open ’60 net new stores in the UK and Ireland’ in the first quarter of this year, however it did not specify how many of these would be opened in the Republic.
It opened 15 new stores in the period in question.
Poundland chief executive Jim McCarthy said that he expected growth to continue this year, however the weaker Euro could impact its performance outside the UK.
"We expect to continue to deliver our growth strategy in the new financial year, notwithstanding some headwinds from a weaker Euro and a tough comparable in the first half,” he said.
Commenting, Shore Capital Stockbrokers noted, “Like-for-like (LFL) sales growth for FY2015 is reported by Poundland to be 2.4%, a very creditable performance in our view given this all represents volume growth, and which implies a c0.8% LFL sales decline through Q4 on our calculations against a challenging c4% comparative.
“In addition, the ongoing weakness of the euro versus sterling has made for transaction and translation constraints since the commencement of the new calendar year in the RoI, which adversely impacted Q4 sales by c0.6%; clearly consideration needs to be maintained upon the £/€ exchange rate which, at the time of writing is £1:€1.38 having averaged £1:€1.19 in calendar 2014.”
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
