David Jones has lifted adjusted first-half sales 4.0 per cent, according to the department stores South African parent company, Woolworths Holdings Limited.
Woolworths Holdings says sales growth took a hit from the absence of collapsed retailer Dick Smith’s electronics concession and the timing of Boxing Day, but that sales were up once those factors had been accounted for.
“David Jones´ growth was affected by the timing of Boxing Day, which falls into the second half of this year as well as last year´s termination of the Dick Smith electronics concession. This negatively impacted sales growth by 2.7% and 1.6% respectively. Adjusting for both, sales were 4.0% higher than the prior year, in Australian dollar terms. Retail space grew by a net 3.4%,” the update said.
Whilst the adjustments make analysis difficult, sales appeared to accelerate sharply in the last seven weeks,” Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Simotas and Daniel Wan wrote in a note.
Having removed a 1.8 per cent sales bump from the acquisition of the Politix fashion brand – and the Boxing Day effect – adjusted sales at Country Road dropped 0.9 per cent over the same period.
Deutsche Bank noted that this represented an improvement on the sales numbers for the first 19 weeks to November 6, when Country Road’s like-for-like sales declined 4.9 per cent and total sales declined 2.8 per cent.
Group sales for the first 26 weeks of FY17 increased by 6.7 per cent over the previous year.
David Jones is currently rolling out a new boutique format around the country, with one store opened in Barangaroo last year and plans submitted to develop another in Queensland early this year.
