Festive sales of Pantaloon Retail India Ltd was not exciting enough. Our retail analyst on demand from readers, has filed this exclusive coverage.
Value Retail same store sales (SSS) growth rebounded in Nov’07 to 40% after a 25% decline in Oct’07, due to late Diwali this year. This implies a growth of mere 2.8% in the festive season (Oct-Nov’07 combined). Lifestyle SSS growth in Nov is at 30% as against a decline of 7% in Oct. Collectively in the festive season SSS growth is 9% compared to over 20% growth maintained for most of the months of the previous fiscal.
The chart below represents sales mix of Pantaloon Retail India Ltd. Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar still account for bulk of the sales for the company.
The company has added retail sales space aggressively in last financial year. In FY2005, the company added 1 mn sft while it declined to 0.85 mn sft in FY06 and zoomed to 2.7 mn sft in FY07. This FY, the company has been little bit slow due to unrealistic realty prices and has managed to add mere 1.5 mn sft till the end of Nov.
The company is expected to clock sales of Rs 7,400 crore for FY2008 but going by the recent reported numbers, a slowdown is imminent.