Screwfix and Poland shine in Kingfisher’s quarterly report

In the first quarter of its financial year 2016/2017 (ending 30 April 2016), Kingfisher has exceeded the corresponding previous year's level by 5.1 per cent with sales of GBP 2.723 bn. After adjusting for exchange rate effects, the increase lay at 2.3 per cent. In the same retail area the British group increased sales by 3.6 per cent.
This increase came mainly from Great Britain and Poland. Although in its home market the sales channel B&Q lost sales in total of 4.2 per cent because ten further stores were closed; until now 40 of the 65 planned closures have been carried out. In contrast the Screwfix sales channel achieved double-digit growth: 23.5 per cent in total and like-for-like at 16.2 per cent. In Poland Kingfischer achieved a growth of 14.6 percent to GBP 267 mio (like-for-like constant currency: 10.8 per cent).In France Castorama and Brico Dépôt made sales of GBP 1.045 bn together. That's 9.7 per cent more than in the same period last year, however in constant currency only 2.2 per cent more. Like-for-like increase was 0.2 per cent.
Stores in Russia fell behind after the strong quarter in the previous year; at the same time the poor exchange rate had a negative effect: minus 17.5 per cent as reported, minus 5.7 per cent constant currency, minus 4.5 per cent like-for-like.