- Q1 sales revenue at A$10.25 bln
- Supermarkets inflation eases in Q1
- Early Q2 start in line with Q1
- Shares skid in early trade
World
Australia’s Coles sales rise on at-home consumption, easing food prices
Oct 26 (Reuters) – Australia’s Coles Group (COL.AX) posted a 3.6% jump in first-quarter sales on Thursday, boosted by higher contribution from its supermarkets section owing to strong food volume growth, as consumers increasingly opted for at-home consumption.
Persistently high cost-of-living pressures after 12 interest rate hikes since May last year have pushed consumers to opt for in-house consumption, with deflation in prices of fruits and vegetables, meat, seafood and bakery items boosting volumes.
Inflation at Coles’s supermarkets division declined to 3.1% for the quarter, down from 5.8% in the prior quarter and sharply below 7.1% from last year, due to deflation in the fresh category, the grocer said.
Supermarkets, Coles’s biggest revenue-generating unit, logged sales revenue of A$9.19 billion for the quarter, a 4.7% growth from a year ago, which missed a Jefferies’ expectation of 5.8% growth.
That helped the country’s second-largest grocer post group sales revenue of A$10.25 billion ($6.46 billion) for the 13 weeks to Sept. 24, compared with A$9.89 billion reported a year ago.
Meanwhile, the grocer added that it ramped up security measures to reduce total loss from stock loss, waste and markdown across supermarkets during the first quarter, and this will continue into the second quarter.
“Commentary in the release implies that while waste and markdown has improved, theft has not yet improved and may have continued to worsen,” analysts at Jefferies said.
“While today is a sales update and not an earnings update, we expect discussion on stock loss to determine the direction of the share price today.”
Shares of the grocer were down 0.3% at A$14.90 in early trade.
Providing a preview into the second quarter, Coles said in the early part its supermarkets and liquor divisions logged sales revenue growth broadly in line with the first quarter.
On Wednesday, the country’s largest grocer Woolworths (WOW.AX) logged an increase in food sales in the first quarter as value-conscious shoppers seized on cheaper meat, fruit and vegetables, but warned of continuing living cost pressures.
($1 = 1.5855 Australian dollars)
Reporting by Sameer Manekar and John Biju in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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World
Mexican cops find tents, question people in the case of 2 Australians, 1 American missing in Baja
Mexican authorities said Thursday they have found tents and questioned three people in the case of two Australians and an American who went missing over the weekend in the Pacific coast state of Baja California.
María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the state’s chief prosecutor, would not say whether the three people questioned were considered possible suspects or witnesses in the case. She said only that some were tied directly to the case, and others indirectly.
2 AMERICANS FOUND DEAD IN HOTEL ROOM IN MEXICO’S BAJA CALIFORNIA
But Andrade Ramírez said evidence found along with the abandoned tents was somehow linked to the three. The three foreigners were believed to have been surfing and camping along the Baja coast near the coastal city of Ensenada, but did not show up at their planned accommodations over the weekend.
“A working team (of investigators) is at the site where they were last seen, where tents and other evidence was found that could be linked to these three people we have under investigation,” Andrade Ramírez said. “There is a lot of important information that we can’t make public.”
“We do not know what condition they are in,” she added. While drug cartels are active in the area, she said “all lines of investigation are open at this time. We cannot rule anything out until we find them.”
On Wednesday, the missing Australians’ mother, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page an appeal for help in finding her sons, Jake and Callum. Robinson said her son had not been heard from since Saturday April 27. They had booked accommodations in the nearby city of Rosarito, Baja California.
Robinson said one of her sons, Callum, is diabetic. She also mentioned that the American who was with them was named Jack Carter Rhoad, but the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City did not immediately confirm that. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in Baja, but gave no further details.
Andrade Ramírez said her office was in contact with Australian and U.S. officials. But she suggested that the time that had passed might make it harder to find them.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the last few days that they were reported missing. So, that meant that important hours or time was lost,” she said.
In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed in western Sinaloa state, across the Gulf of California — also known as the Sea of Cortez— from the Baja peninsula. Authorities say they were victims of highway bandits. Three suspects were arrested in that case.
World
European elections: What do voters want? What have candidates pledged?
Watch episode one of Euronews’ guide on the European elections, taking place from June 6 to 9.
Ahead of European elections in June, Euronews asked voters to name one proposal they would do if elected to the European Parliament and questioned candidates on their pledges.
Watch the video above to find out more.
World
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