DURBNA - Mr Price has warned that its earnings for the six months to September 26 are likely to fall by 20 percent as the retailer continues to be negatively impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Mr Price expected its basic earnings per share (Eps) and basic headline earnings per share to decline by 20 percent compared with last year’s Eps of 443.6 cents a share and 443.2c, respectively.
However, the group said there were still six weeks remaining of the 26-week, first-half of the 2021 financial year trading period. Mr Price expected to release a further trading guidance once management had a reasonable degree of certainty about the expected earnings numbers.
However, in the first 20 weeks of the trading period, from March 29 to August 15, the group said it was impacted by the material disruptions from Covid-19, which had a significant impact on its trading performance.
Its retail sales for the 20-week period declined by 19.2 percent compared with a year earlier, with the apparel segment declining by 22.2 percent and the home segment by 15 percent.
“Despite this, performance exceeded internal expectations and the group has gained market share for four months in a row to June, the latest period for which Retailers’ Liaison Committee data is available,” the group said.
This comes after Mr Price experienced store closures in April after the country went to level 5 of the lockdown.
BUSINESS REPORT