Walgreens April Comp Sales Increase 7.6%

(RTTNews) - Drugstore chain Walgreens (WAG) announced Monday that comparable store sales, or sales at stores open for one year or more, grew 7.6 percent in April, with total sales, including stores open less than a year, also increasing 8.8 percent from last year.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based company reported that total sales, including stores open less than a year, grew 8.8 percent to $6.49 billion in the month of April, from $5.96 billion in the same period of last year.

The company's April sales results were negatively impacted by calendar day shifts due to one additional Wednesday and one fewer Monday in April 2014 compared to April 2013. However, The results benefited from a later Easter this year, which fell on April 20 compared with March 31 last year.

Total comparable store sales also grew 7.6 percent, which had a negative impact of 0.8 percentage point due to generic drug introductions in the last 12 months, and by 0.5 percentage point due to calendar day-shift.

At the company's pharmacy counters, sales for the month increased 9.2 percent. Comparable store pharmacy sales also increased 7.3 percent, negatively impacted by 1.3 percentage points due to generic drug introductions, and by 0.8 percentage point due to calendar day-shift.

Pharmacy sales accounted for 64.5 percent of total sales for April.

Total prescriptions filled at comparable stores for the month of April increased 3.5 percent, including a 0.8 percentage points negative impact due to calendar shifts.

Total front-end sales in April grew 8.8 percent, and comparable store front-end sales was up 8.2 percent. Customer traffic in comparable stores grew 2.6 percent, while basket size grew 5.6 percent.

During the month of April, Walgreens opened eight stores, including two re-locations, six acquisitions, and two closures.

For the calendar year-to-date four-month period, total sales grew 5.4 percent to $24.05 billion from the year-ago period.

For the fiscal 2014 year-to-date eight-month period, total sales improved 5.8 percent to $50.88 billion from the prior-year period.

In Monday's regular trading session, WAG is currently trading at $69.36, up $0.50 or 0.73% on a volume of 0.16 million shares.