Harvey Norman shares dropped 5.46 per cent yesterday. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today
Harvey Norman shares dropped 5.46 per cent yesterday. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today
SYDNEY: Furniture and electronics retailer Harvey Norman has reported slower than expected sales growth for the first quarter of 2009/10, prompting a slump in its share price.
Sales from its franchised complexes and other outlets in Australia, New Zealand, Slovenia and Ireland for the three months ended September rose 4.3per cent to A$1.50 billion ($1.88 billion) from the previous corresponding quarter.
On a like-for-like store basis, sales were up 2 per cent.
The result was relatively flat when compared to the fourth quarter of 2008/09, when sales rose 4.5 per cent to A$1.49 billion and were up 2 per cent in like-for-like terms.
But given recent signs of the beginnings of a turnaround in the wider economy and sharp improvements in consumer confidence, financial market analysts had expected a better result.
Investment house JPMorgan had recently projected a 6.3 per cent rise in overall sales, and a 4.3 per cent lift in like-for-like sales, in the quarter.
Shares in Harvey Norman were down A26 cents, or 5.46 per cent, to A$4.50 yesterday.
Shares in fellow electronic goods retailer JB Hi-Fi were up A25c, or 1.22 per cent, to A$20.75.
However, Harvey Norman's September quarter figures still reflect a better rate of sales growth from the same quarter in 2008/09, when the global financial and economic crisis was setting in.
Then, first quarter sales were up 3 per cent to A$1.44 billion and up 1.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
Harvey Norman also said yesterday that its Australian sales had risen 5.8 per cent in the first quarter of this financial year from the same period a year earlier.
Like-for-like sales were also higher, by 4.6 per cent.
That compared to rises of 6.7 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, in the June quarter.
