Despite an eight percent increase in year-on-year revenue in the second half of 2012, Michael Hill International’s December quarter sales failed to meet the retailer’s expectations.
According to the company’s just released trading update for the last six months, “December quarter sales, including the critical Christmas trading period, fell short of our forecasts and didn’t deliver the improvement over last year that the company had expected”.
However chairman Michael Hill stressed that “while all four markets (Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US) struggled to gain traction over 2011’s sales in the second quarter, it is still pleasing that all four markets achieved solid ‘same store’ store sales for the half year”.
The company’s sales revenue for the second half of 2012 rose 9 percent in Australia to reach NZ$206.7m while sales in New Zealand rose 3.7 per cent to NZ$63m, sales in Canada rose 19.4 percent to NZ$36m and sales in the US rose 0.8 percent to NZ$6.7m.
Meanwhile the company’ total same-store sales for the second half of 2012 were 2.6 per cent higher at NZ$287.7m.
Same-store sales in Australia rose 2.6 per cent to NZ$188.4m, 3.1 per cent to NZ$62.5m in New Zealand, 2.1 percent to NZ$30.1m in Canada and 0.8 per cent to NZ$6.7m in the US.
The company is expected to announce its full half-year results on February 15 but Hill said half-year earnings before interest and tax are expected to be in the range of NZ$34m to NZ$36m compared to NZ$34.775m for the corresponding period in 2011.