Walgreens February Comp Sales Increase 4.5%

(RTTNews) - Drugstore chain Walgreens (WAG) announced Wednesday that comparable store sales, or sales at stores open for one year or more, grew 4.5 percent in February, with total sales, including stores open less than a year, also increasing 5.0 percent from last year.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based company reported that total sales, including stores open less than a year, grew 5.0 percent to $6.05 billion in the month of February, from $5.76 billion in the same period of last year.

Total comparable store sales also grew 4.5 percent, which had a negative impact of 0.9 percentage point due to generic drug introductions in the last 12 months, and by 0.4 percentage point due to lower incidence of flu.

At the company's pharmacy counters, sales for the month increased 6.7 percent. Comparable store pharmacy sales also increased 6.1 percent, negatively impacted by 1.4 percentage points due to generic drug introductions.. Its was also positively impacted by 0.1 percentage point due to more flu shots, and by 0.7 percentage point due to the lower incidence of flu.

Pharmacy sales accounted for 62.9 percent of total sales for February.

The company noted that flu shots administered at pharmacies and clinics season-to-date grew to 7.7 million from about 7.0 million last year.

Total prescriptions filled at comparable stores for the month of February increased 2.2 percent, including a 0.1 percentage points positive impact due to higher flu shots, while being negatively impacted by 1.0 percentage points due to the lower incidence of flu.

Total front-end sales in February grew 3.0 percent, and comparable store front-end sales was up 2.0 percent. Meanwhile, customer traffic in comparable stores edged down 0.7 percent, while basket size grew 2.7 percent.

During the month of February, Walgreens opened eight stores, including five re-locations.

For the second quarter, total sales grew 5.2 percent to $19.61 billion from the prior-year quarter, with comparable store sales rising 4.5 percent, and front-end comparable store sales improving 2.0 percent. Prescriptions filled at comparable stores increased 2.4 percent, and comparable pharmacy sales increased 6.1 percent.

For the calendar year-to-date two-month period, total sales grew 4.2 percent to $12.43 billion from the year-ago period.

For the fiscal 2014 year-to-date six-month period, total sales improved 5.5 percent to $37.95 billion from the prior-year period.

WAG closed Tuesday's regular trading session at $69.09, up $0.64 on a volume of 7.25 million shares.