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Today, Lawson announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2011 ending February 29, 2012. A summary of our consolidated results is as follows:
Operating profit | increased 14.9% year on year to 12.8 billion yen. |
Recurring profit | increased 16.9% year on year to 12.8 billion yen. |
Net loss of | 1.9 billion yen was recorded. |
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I am pleased to tell you that our first-quarter operating profit increased by about 1.7 billion yen, or 15%, from a year ago and exceeded our own forecast by 1.2 billion yen. We worked hard to restore damaged areas by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March, as our top-priority issue, and to realize our corporate philosophy of "Happiness and Harmony in our Community." I believe that our efforts have resulted in renewed appreciation of the value of convenience stores as a source of items needed for daily life that is close to its customers. In addition, we made efforts at offering a merchandise assortment that better satisfies customers' needs, based on our customer purchases data analysis and product development strategies, through emphasizing procurement of high quality raw materials. This has resulted in a 3.2% year-on-year growth in existing store sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2011.
While Lawson recorded a 1.9 billion yen net loss in the first quarter, I can assure you that this was caused by the expected one-off factors of earthquake-related loss (2.8 billion yen) and asset retirement obligation (8.2 billion yen). In fact, the actual net loss was about 1.6 billion less than forecast.
I am confident that we will achieve our full-year earnings forecasts by increasing our efforts at the above initiatives and by improving profitability of franchised stores. We will also promote overseas business as well as the entertainment and e-commerce businesses, to further build a base that enables a sustained mid- and long-term growth for the company.
Let me conclude with the good news that our sales and profit grew favorably in June. Even excluding cigarette sales, we had strong growth over the previous June's sales, reflecting our customers' receptiveness to our selection of food items, and in particular our "Lawson-original" items. I am grateful for this development.
I would like to thank you, our shareholders and investors, for your continuing understanding and support.
July 5, 2011
Takeshi Niinami
President & Chief Executive Officer
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