Whitbread has issued a trading update for performance to 14 February showing TOTAL sales growth of nearly 15% and like for like sales growth of 3.7%, with the company on track to deliver full year results in line with expectations.
Trading highlights for the 50 weeks
Premier Inn
- increased total room nights sold by 11.2% to 13.0 million.
- Year to date, Premier Inn like for like revpar grew by 1.6% with occupancy up 1.1% pts to 77.4% and rate up by 0.1%. For the fourth quarter, like for like revpar grew by 0.8% with occupancy up 4.2% pts and rate down 5.5%.
- Over the fourth quarter, Premier Inn total revpar grew by 0.7% compared with a decline of 0.8% for the Mid-scale and Economy sector and the total market down 0.6%.
- In the UK Regions, over the fourth quarter, Premier Inn total revpar was down 0.3%. This compared with a decline of 0.9% for the Mid-scale and Economy sector and growth of 0.8% for the total market.
- In the London market, for the fourth quarter, Premier Inn total revpar was up by 2.2%. This compared with a decline of 5.0% for the Mid-scale and Economy sector and the total market down 3.6%. During the year, Premier Inn has increased room capacity by 22% in London.
Restaurants
- delivered total covers growth of 5.5% year to date, of which like for like growth was 3.0%.
- Restaurants like for like sales growth of 0.2%, in the fourth quarter, was predominantly driven by strong trading over the Christmas period offset by adverse weather conditions in January.
- on track to open 4,300 new rooms and ten joint site restaurants in the UK this year and around 4,000 new rooms and a similar number of restaurants in the next financial year.
Costa
- Costa continued to perform strongly growing total system sales in the 50 weeks by 22.4% to £962.0 million, within which franchise sales were up 18.5% to £383.3 million.
- UK Retail system sales grew by 20.2% to £525.2 million, with equity stores delivering like for like sales growth of 6.6%.
- Costa Enterprises grew system sales to £225.6 million, up 29.7%.
- Overall the market in EMEI was robust with system sales growing by 11.7% to £165.5 million. However, Poland remains a difficult market with like for like sales now down year to date.
- Costa Asia system sales grew by 71.7% to £45.7 million. We continue to invest in infrastructure to support our rollout strategy.
- on track to open 320 net new stores worldwide and around 1,300 Costa Express units in the full year. Next year plan to open a broadly similar number of net new stores worldwide and over 500 Costa Express units.
Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:
“For the financial year to date, Whitbread has again delivered outstanding organic growth in a flat consumer market, growing total sales by 14.8%. Our strong brands continue to win market share, supported by our highest ever guest satisfaction scores and rapid expansion of our network.
“Good like for like sales growth of 3.7% demonstrates the consumer appeal of our brands and also enables us to reinvest in our people and facilities and to grow our estate. We remain on track to deliver full year results in line with expectations.
“During the fourth quarter, we maintained our strong momentum with total sales growth of 16.9%, although the headline like for like sales growth of 2.7% was slightly suppressed by adverse weather conditions in January, particularly affecting the restaurants business.
“Premier Inn continued to outperform its competitive set and delivered total sales growth of 14.1% together with like for like sales growth of 2.9%. Our restaurant business continued to improve, outperforming the Coffer Peach industry benchmark, with like for like sales growth of 0.2%. Costa continued to excel with total sales up 32.2% and UK like for like equity store sales up 5.5%.
“We see no change to market conditions, although we expect a more competitive environment. We shall continue to deliver good organic growth and are on track to achieve our 2016 growth milestones.”
Full year results will be announced on 30 April 2013.