Primark sales up 6% in 2018 despite like-for-like fall

Primark keeps on growing thanks to physical expansion. The Irish chain, property of AB Foods, as ended fiscal 2018 with a growth of 6%, contrasting with the 19% of the previous fiscal year. New openings balanced out the decrease of comparable sales, which stood at 2.1%. Operating profit, for its part, shoot a 15% up, reaching 843 million pounds (963 million euros).

The company’s revenue was set at 7.47 billion pounds sterling (8.53 million

euros) during the last fiscal year (ended on the 15^th of September), compared to the 7.05 billion pounds (8.05 million euros) of the previous one. The company also improved its gross margin, which stood at 11.3%, ahead of the 10.4% from 2017.

Primark has announced its entrance to Slovenia and Poland in the next few years

This improvement was encouraged by a more efficient purchasing policy and the impact of the dollar’s weakening in sourcing, especially during the second quarter. Ahead of the upcoming year, Primark foresees a new improvement in the margins of the first quarter as well as a stable ratio for the whole year.

All in all, AB Foods underlines that the company “will be sensitive to sterling exchange-rate volatility which is likely to arise given a period of intense Brexit negotiations”.

United Kingdom, a motor of growth

The British market was one of the few that upgraded its evolution the most during the fiscal year. Primark grew a 5.3% in the country and raised its comparable sales 1.2% “in a market that reduced”, as claimed by the company in a statement.

In the Eurozone, the corporation increased their revenue a 4.7% although comparable sales fell down at the same rate. Primark highlights that business grew in Spain, Portugal and Germany. Adjusting the cannibalisation of new openings, the company predicts that the fall of comparable sales was of 3.6%, which they partly attribute to climatology, especially in the north of Europe.

Spain was one of the countries where the chain’s business evolved the most

In the United States, the corporation is described as “very satisfied” with the evolution, pointing out that comparable sales improved, even in stores where commercial space was reduced. For the next two years, the group predicts new openings in the American Dream shopping centre, in New Jersey, and in Sawgrass Mills, in Florida.

On a global scale, Primark added fifteen new stores during fiscal 2018, reaching a total of 360 stores around the world. Concretely, the enterprise opened five new stores in Germany, four in the United Kingdom, two in France and one in Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States and Spain (in Valencia).

Ahead of the future fiscal year, the corporation predicts the opening of fifteen more stores, two of them in Spain, which will be distributed in Sevilla and Almería. Furthermore, the brand will disembark in Slovenia, with an opening in Ljubljana, and has signed the contract for its first store in the Polish country, located in Warsaw.