Foschini's Christmas trading sales up 11.4%

The Foschini Group said its Christmas trading was in line with expectations across all merchandise categories‚ with group sales growth for December of 11.4% and same-store growth of 5.3%.

Strong Christmas sales at Foschini were in line with expectations. Image: Tyger Valley

Broken down by category‚ sales in clothing grew 11.9% (same-store growth 5.4%)‚ homeware was up 10.1% (same-store growth 4.5%)‚ cosmetics grew 7.7% (same-store growth 3.6%)‚ jewellery increased by 8.9% (same-store growth 4.4%) and cellphones growth was 14.7% (same-store growth 8.1%).

Group sales for the nine months to December increased by 9.1%‚ with same-store sales growth of 4.0%.

For the nine-month period‚ sales for clothing grew 9.0% (same-store growth 3.0%)‚ homeware was up 13.0% (same-store growth 10.1%)‚ cosmetics growth was 9.5% (same-store growth 5.9%)‚ jewellery grew by 5.8% (same-store growth 2.3%) and cellphones 11.0% (same-store growth 5.7%).

Merchandise inflation for the period averaged 7.0%.

In the period after Christmas‚ Foschini reported "strong" sales in all categories for the roughly two weeks from late-December to mid-January 13‚ with group sales increasing by 17.6% and same-store growth of 11.4.