Walgreens March Comps Up 3.5%, Sales Rise 4.5% - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Walgreens (WAG) said that its comparable stores sales for the month of March 2014 increased by 3.5 percent. Calendar day shifts positively impacted total comparable sales by 0.6 percent. Generic drug introductions in the last 12 months negatively impacted total comparable sales by 1.0 percentage point, while the lower incidence of flu negatively impacted total comparable sales by 0.2 percentage point.

With Easter falling on April 20 this year compared with March 31 last year, total front-end sales decreased 2.6 percent in March compared with the same month in fiscal 2013, while comparable store front-end sales decreased 3.4 percent. Customer traffic in comparable stores decreased 4.0 percent while basket size increased 0.6 percent.

Monthly sales were $6.43 billion, an increase of 4.5 percent from $6.16 billion in the same month last year.

The company said it will report combined comparable store sales for March and April with its April sales results.