‘Particularly pleasing’: Myer sales surge to record

Department store Myer says it expects to report a profit jump for the first half of 2023 as trading from its post-Christmas stocktake period continues to outperform last year.

Chief executive John King said the company has recorded the best sales it has seen in the first five months of a financial year since records started in 2004.

“The results…are particularly pleasing and more importantly also show improved profitability in the business,” he said.

In an update lodged with the ASX on Tuesday the company revealed total sales for the five months to December 31 were up 24.8 per cent on the same period last year, and store sales were up 37.9 per cent.

The group’s online sales slipped by 9.4 per cent as retail trading lockdowns lifted and shoppers returned in store, but Myer’s online transactions are still up by 39.9 per cent on the same time frame one year earlier.

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The department store said that based on the trading numbers, it currently expects a net profit after tax for the first six months of 2023 come in at between $61 million and $66 million – an increase of between 89 per cent and 104 per cent on the result in 2022’s financial year.

That half-year figure does not all costs and “significant items” associated with running the business, but it is still ahead of Myer’s full-year profit for 2022, which came in at $60.2 million.

The company said “trading from the stocktake sale period continues to strongly outperform the prior corresponding period, which was impacted by Omicron”.