German retailer Metro has released its results for the opening quarter of the 2013/14 financial year, revealing a strong boost in earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) to €1.09bn from €985m.
Net profit for the three-month period soared to €514m from €129m, while sales fell 3.3 per cent to €18.7bn – with all markets except western Europe experiencing a fall on the previous year's results.
'As expected, we generated more than half of our targeted full year EBIT in the important first quarter', said Olaf Koch, chairman of the management board at Metro AG. 'With this achievement, we have set a solid foundation for reaching our full-year 2013/14 guidance and for successfully continuing Metro Group's transformation.
'Already today, we see a clear trend improvement in the like-for-like sales development and our important growth drivers - online and delivery sales - are growing dynamically,' he added. 'On the back of this, I am very confident that our progress in the coming quarters will be reflected in both our like-for-like sales development and our earnings.'
