Decent start to Metro Group’s fiscal year

“Clear improvement”

EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) for 2013/14’s first quarter grew from 985 million euro to 1.094 billion euro. “With this achievement, we have set a solid foundation for reaching our FY 2013/14 guidance. […] Already today, we see a clear trend improvement in the like-for-like sales development and our important growth drivers – online and delivery sales – are growing dynamically”, CEO Olaf Koch said.

The group’s total turnover reached 18.7 billion euro, a drop compared to the 19.4 billion euro it managed to reach the year before. Internal changes and exchange rate fluctuations were almost entirely to blame for the 3.3 % drop. If these issues are taken into account, Metro Group’s turnover would have increased 1.1 %. Nevertheless, despite the drop in turnover, the net profit grew immensely, from 129 million euro last year to 514 million euro for this year’s quarter.

Deliveries and online sales experienced the biggest bumps in turnover, with deliveries going up 17.5 % (to 0.7 billion euro) and online sales going up 47.2 % (to 0.4 billion euro).

Eastern Europe experienced steep drop

Germany, Metro’s home market, had a 1 % turnover drop while Western European sales remained stable (+ 0.1 %). Eastern Europe was a big letdown for the group, with a 10.8 % sales drop, mostly because several stores were closed. The like-for-like turnover for this specific region did manage to grow 4.6 %.

The Asia/Africa region had an additional 7 % in sales and if we ignore Media Market’s Chinese retreat, turnover would have grown 11.3 %. Exchange rate fluctuations meant the turnover, when expressed in euro, even dropped 1.1 %.

Turnover drop in most branches

Evaluating every separate branch within Metro Group, Metro Cash & Carry saw Its turnover drop 1.1 %, from 8.6 billion euro to 8.5 billion euro, with Eastern Europe and Germany dropping 2.6 and 2.1 %. The Asia/Africa region slowed down the drop, with a 2.7 % increase to counter the other regions.

Media-Saturn also had to take a loss in turnover, albeit minor: last year it managed 6.65 billion euro, but this year it had 6.60 billion euro, a 0.7 % drop. Again, Eastern Europe impacted sales negatively, with a 2.2 % drop, while other markets managed to stay (relatively) level.

Despite the fact that two previous branches had to deal with a loss, Real is the biggest problem. Its sales dropped 16 %, from 3.1 billion euro to 2.6 euro, which is mainly because it pretty much sold its entire Eastern European activities to Groupe Auchan. That leaves Real Poland and Real Turkey in the current financial numbers, even though Poland will also be stricken off of next quarter’s numbers.

Galeria Kaufhof managed a 0.6 % turnover increase from 996 million euro to 1.002 billion euro, despite pretty much only being operational in Germany.