We are responding to new demand in new norms by expanding the range of products that support customers' daily lives and developing products that meet diversifying values while implementing thorough measures to combat infections.

The sales result of the LAWSON Business (LAWSON and NATURAL LAWSON) in July is as follows*1.
Existing-store sales (excluding ticket and gift card sales etc.) increased 5.0% year on year over the same period and the average number of customers per store rose 2.2% and the average customer spend rose 2.8% year on year.

The Lawson Group operated 14,634 convenience stores in Japan at the end of July 2021, including 139 NATURAL LAWSON stores and 673 LAWSON STORE 100 stores. The number of stores introducing the "Machikado Chubo" in-store kitchens, which is expanding in line with the growing needs of customers, reached approximately 7,000.

＜Operating Results＞
Existing-store sales increased year-on-year, mainly in the following categories:
・Sales of fresh foods, frozen foods, and daily-delivered foods grew as demand for daily-use products remained high.
・In rice products category, sales of chilled products such as our “Korega” lunchbox series and the renewed mainstay rice balls were favorable.
・Sales of cooked noodles (chilled noodles), ice cream, and soft drinks grew as the product lineup was strengthened in line with rising temperatures.
・In over-the-counter fast foods, sales of the renewed charcoal-grilled chicken ”Sumibi Yakitori” and standard products such as fried chicken nugget “Karaage-kun” and fried chicken “Torikara” were favorable.
・At the in-store kitchen “Machikado Chubo”, received favorable reviews for items such as boxed lunches tailored to the needs of each region.
・Sales of alcoholic beverages were strong due to increased demand from watching the Olympics at home.
・In toys, sales were attributable to related products of the Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) and the popular Idle Group, and fireworks of seasonal merchandise.

Cigarette sales were a factor that pushed up existing-store sales in July by about 2.0 point year-on-year.

＜Major Promotions＞
・Carried out a campaign for character stamps in July 1-August 30.
・Implementation of special effects hero app stamp rally for children in July 13th to August 16th.

＜Topics＞ * for details, please refer to the news release.
・Lawson Inc., Kirin Holdings Company, Limited, and Kirin Beverage Company, Limited have collaborated to start a demonstration experiment of collecting used PET bottle containers utilizing the infrastructure of each company at Lawson stores in Yokohama City.
・Dalian Lawson, Inc., our local subsidiary and Panasonic Corporation of China, opened a new LAWSON store in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, People's Republic of China, for SDGs and post-COVID.
・Started handling DiDi Food, a delivery service operated by DiDi Food Japan Corp. (Chuo-ku, Tokyo), at some LAWSON stores in Fukuoka Prefecture. As a result, Lawson has introduced a total of four delivery services, Uber Eats, foodpanda, Wolt, and DiDi Food, and the number of stores that have introduced delivery services is 1,906 in 30 prefectures.
・Some Lawson stores in Chiba and Kumamoto Prefectures began handling OTC drugs, the first in both prefectures for Uber Eats.

Note 1: Sales of the LAWSON Business include sales generated by LAWSON stores (excluding Lawson Okinawa, Inc., Lawson Minami-Kyushu, Inc., and Lawson Kochi, Inc.), NATURAL LAWSON stores.