Whitbread PLC has reported its trading performance for the third quarter to 29 November 2012, showing total sales up 14.4%, and like for like sales up across all parts of the business.
Whitbread has outlined five-year growth milestones (to 2015/16) to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms to at least 65,000, to add 80-100 new Restaurants and to nearly double the size of Costa with global system sales of £1.3bn and 3,500 stores worldwide.
Sales update (% change vs. prior year)
Sales for the 13 weeks to 29th November 2012 Sales for the 39 weeks to 29th November 2012
Like for like sales Total sales Like for like sales Total sales
Premier Inn +2.5% +12.6% +3.3% +12.6%
Restaurants +1.9% +4.1% +2.9% +5.2%
Hotels and Restaurants +2.3% +9.5% +3.1% +9.8%
Costa +7.1% +25.5% +6.9% +25.3%
Total +3.3% +14.4% +3.9% +14.3%
Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:
“Whitbread continued its strong growth momentum with total sales up 14.4% together with good like for like sales growth of 3.3%. This once again demonstrates the strength of our brands.
“During the third quarter, Premier Inn continued to outperform its competitive set with total sales growth of 12.6% and like for like sales growth of 2.5%. Over the same period, Premier Inn delivered total revpar growth of 0.7% compared with a decline of 0.6% for the total UK hotel market and a decline of 5.4% for the Mid-scale and Economy sector. Restaurants continued to outperform the market with like for like sales growth of 1.9%, against tougher comparatives. Costa continued its strong sales momentum with UK like for like equity stores up 7.1% and total sales up 25.5%.
“The economic environment remains challenging with no change in our background consumer market. We are on track to deliver full year results in line with expectations.”
Trading highlights for the 39 weeks:
Hotels and Restaurants
• Premier Inn increased total room nights sold by 9.6% to 10.5 million.
• Year to date, Premier Inn like for like revpar grew by 1.8%. Occupancy was up 0.2ppts to 80.4% and rate was up by 1.5%.
• In the UK Regions, over the third quarter, Premier Inn total revpar declined by 0.2%. This compared with a decline of 0.7% for the total market and the Mid-scale and Economy sector down by 4.3%.
• In the London market, for the third quarter, Premier Inn total revpar declined by 0.9%. This compared with a decline of 1.9% for the total market and the Mid-scale and Economy sector down by 11.4%. During the year, Premier Inn has increased capacity by 22% in London.
• Restaurants delivered total covers growth of 6.8% year to date, of which like for like growth was 4.3%.
• Restaurants like for like growth of 1.9%, in the quarter, was predominantly driven by growth in spend per head.
• Opened 50,000th room in the UK. For the full year, plan to have opened around 4,500 new rooms and eight joint site restaurants in the UK.
Costa
• Costa continued to perform strongly growing total system sales in the 39 weeks by 21.9% to £733.9 million, within which franchise sales were up 18.7% to £295.7 million.
• UK Retail system sales grew by 20.1% to £399.2 million, with equity stores delivering like for like sales growth of 6.9%.
• Costa Enterprises grew system sales to £175.2 million, up 27.3%.
• System sales grew by 10.8% to £125.8 million within EMEI. During the quarter, the Middle East continued to deliver a solid performance while trading in Central and Southern Europe remained difficult.
• Costa Asia system sales grew by 80.2% to £33.8 million, with like for like sales growth in China softer over the third quarter. We opened 24 net new stores in the period and we continue to invest in infrastructure to support our rollout strategy.
• We plan to open 330 net new stores worldwide and around 1,300 Costa Express units in the full year.