Health and Beauty retailer Holland & Barrett celebrated a “strong financial performance” in the year to 30 September 2015 as total like-for-likes and its retail estate saw strong growth.
Total like-for-likes rose by 7%, driven by its UK stores which recorded a like-for-like increase of 10.4%. Internationally, including its outlets in The Netherlands and Belgium and franchised stores in China, sales grew by 11.7%.
Online sales soared by 27.5%, largely due to a 127% rise in mobile sales.
In its financial year, Holland and Barrett focused on extending its already 1,071 store international portfolio, increasing its store number in Ireland from 47 to 50 sites and opening a 70,000 sq ft warehouse in Dublin to enhance its distribution capacity in the country and in Sweden.
The health retailer also opened a head office in Amsterdam to assist its warehouse operations in the country.
Chief Financial Officer Christian Keen noted that the retailer‘s “strong financial performance” was due to “ a combination of continued investment in store openings and refurbishments and realising the value of our omnichannel growth strategy.”
“At the end of March this year we completed our 28th consecutive quarter of like-for-like growth,” said Keen.
“We have set ourselves a challenging target to become a £1bn business by 2020, drawing on plans for further international growth and our ability to leverage our position as part of the NBTY Group.”
