OREANDA-NEWS. December 18, 2012. OJSC Pharmacy Chain 36.6 [RTS:APTK; MICEX:RU14APTK1007], the leading Russian pharmaceutical retailer, announces unaudited sales and operational results for 9M 2012 according to the management accounts.

GROUP SALES:

Group’s consolidated Net sales reached RUR 15 588 mln in 9M 2012 which is a 1% decrease in ruble terms y-o-y;

Pharmacy Retail Net Sales increased by 4% in 9M 2012 and reached RUR 10 939 mln;

Net Sales of finished goods of the production unit Veropharm reached RUR 4 151 mln versus;

Non-core business Net sales in 9M 2012 reached RUR 550 mln.

Tabl.1 ‘Consolidated Group Sales’

RUR mln

GRUP

Retail

Veropharm

Other

Intercompany elimination

9M 2012

15 588

10 939

4 151

550

- 53

9M 2011

15 693

10 572

4 534

638

- 50

Change, %

-1%

4%

-8%

-14%

5%

RETAIL SALES:

Pharmacy Retail Sales increased by 6% in 3Q 2012 and reached RUR 3 492 mln;

In 9M 2012 Pharmacy Retail Sales increased by 4% and reached RUR 10 393 mln;

As of the end of 9M 2012 Pharmacy Chain 36.6 operated 892 stores in 29 regions of Russia;

During 9M 2012 46 stores were opened organically and 159 were closed;

As of the 30th of September 2012 Pharmacy Chain 36.6 operated 9 stand-alone optical outlets and 24 additional optical departments within pharmacies.

Tabl.2 ‘Pharmacy retail sales’

　

9M 2012

9M 2011

change, %

3Q 2012

3Q 2011

change, %

Number of stores

892

996

-

-

-

-

Nett Sales, mln RUR

10 939

10 572

4%

3 492

3 307

6%

Moscow

5 487

5 040

9%

1 769

1 620

9%

Regions

5 453

5 531

-1%

1 735

1 752

-1%

Traffic
mln. Tickets

34

39

-12%

11

12

-11%

Moscow

13

14

-7%

4

4

-4%

Regions

21

25

-15%

7

8

-14%

OPERATIONAL DATA FOR THE RETAIL SEGMENT:

As of the 30th of September Pharmacy Chain 36.6 operated 188 ‘Leko’ stores. During first nine months of the project 196 stores were converted to ‘Leko’ format;

Sales growth at LEKO reached 20% in 3Q 2012, in 9M 2012 sales at ‘LEKO increased by 11% in y-o-y terms;

Consumer traffic in 3Q 2012 increased by 8% at ‘LEKO’ stores.

Like-for-like sales in 3Q and 9M 2012 increased by 1% and 2% versus the same period in 2011 respectively, average ticket in 9M 2012 increased by 17% and reached RUR 377.

As of the end of 3Q 2012 Pharmacy Chain 36.6 operates 593 like-for-like stores.

PRIVATE LABEL:

In 9M 2012 the private label sales increased by 45% versus 9M 2011 and reached RUR 1 815 mln;

In 9M 2012 a share of private label sales in the total retail pharmacy sales increased by 4 percentage points and reached 17%.

Number of SKUs in active portfolio increased by 2 128 SKU.

One of the main objectives of the 2012 year was to increase the effectiveness and profitability of the retail segment through the optimization of the pharmacy chain structure: in the beginning of the year a new brand of ‘economy’ pharmacies ‘Leko’ was launched and a precise course for the reduction of the number of loss-making stores was taken. However many store were closed during this period the company has managed to show positive dynamic in sales. The retail sales increased by 6% in 3Q 2012, this may be considered as a good result, if the fact that 159 stores were closed at the same period to be taken into account. The main priorities of the retail segment in 2013 year are as follows: to optimize the pharmacy chain structure, to increase the profitability level through Private Label (PL) products promotion and further cooperation with the strategic partners.