HAGEN (dpa-AFX) - German perfume and cosmetics retailer Douglas Group (DUGLY.PK, DUGLF.PK) reported Wednesday that its first-half consolidated sales remained stable year-on-year at 1.95 billion euros. The results reflected strong sales increase during the first five months, offset by weak sales in March amid coronavirus pandemic.
Group sales in January and February rose 5.9 percent as it successfully picked up the momentum from the Christmas quarter in terms of both sales and earnings.
In March, Group sales fell 40.2 percent from last year as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic and the officially ordered shutdown of 2,400 stores across Europe.
In-store business sales declined 5.5 percent, while e-commerce business rose 27.2 percent to 415 million euros.
Due to the drastic decrease in sales and profits resulting from the enforced store closures in March, adjusted EBITDA declined slightly by 3 percent year-on-year to 218 million euros.
In the first half of the fiscal year, Douglas generated 21.3 percent of its total sales online, while it was 35.3 percent in Germany.
As of now, 92 percent of the 2,400 Douglas stores have reopened in compliance with the official regulations and hygiene measures.
Matthias Born, Douglas Group CFO, said, 'The coronavirus pandemic has confronted us with serious challenges. As an omnichannel retailer, we however benefited from the acceleration of our e-commerce business, and in this way partially compensated for lost store sales.'
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