Passing of first billion milestone

Baumax increased gross sales by 9 per cent in 2004 to € 1.001 bn. In Austria the company achieved sales up by 5.6 per cent to € 5.6 mio gross, and the international outlets recorded sales up by 13 per cent to € 471 mio. This means the international share of sales was 47 per cent. At the end of 2004 the Austrian market leader had 121 stores in operation, 68 of them in Austria and 53 in central and eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia). In Austria Baumax opened three megastores in 2004 as replacements for outlets that had become too small. Expansion abroad was limited to Hungary, where two new stores were started up and one smaller store was closed down.