Lenta eyes growth after strong second quarter sales
Russian supermarket giant Lenta is targeting growth after seeing its like-for-like sales rise by 14.1% in its second quarter.
The company, which floated on the London Stock Exchange earlier this year, has reported that total sales grew by 39% to 46.3 billion roubles in the quarter ending 30 June.
Lenta opened three new hypermarkets and four supermarkets in the period to take the total number of stores to 96. The company increased its total selling space to 543,800 square metres, which is a 37.2% increase on the same period a year earlier.
Lenta chief executive Jan Dunning said: “More and more customers are recognising the improvements we are making to our offer – in product assortment, pricing, promotions and the targeted use of our unique loyalty programme – and this was reflected in both like-for-like traffic growth of over 6% and a 37% increase in active loyalty card holders.
“Importantly, in addition to maintaining our strong trading momentum, we have continued to build Lenta’s development pipeline, including investments in our distribution and supply chain, to underpin our long-term growth ambitions.”
The company said it was confident of delivering 24 new hypermarkets and 15 new supermarkets this year.
Dunning added: “Next year’s store opening programme is also progressing well and we reconfirm our long-term target of doubling net selling space over the three years to December 2016.”
