China’s QKL Stores’ sales decline

Nasdaq-listed Chinese supermarket chain QKL Stores says its revenue fell four per cent in the last quarter, its profit by 4.5 per cent.

“Our third quarter results generally met our levels of expectation,” said Zhuangyi Wang, chairman and CEO.

“The variety, value and freshness of our products continue to resonate with our customers driving sales higher. This store growth was also driven by in-store promotional events such as store anniversary celebrations.”

But he said sales and profit were impacted by “a challenging environment” for retail businesses, mainly due to the rising costs and the emerging eCommerce channel.

“However, we are still confident on the domestic needs because of the urbanisation of the third and fourth tier cities that we will achieve a fundamental improvement in the consumer purchasing power during the process.”

Third quarter revenue totalled $58.6 million, down from $61.1 million in the same quarter last year. Gross profit was $9.8 million, down from $10.3 million.

“We look forward to the upcoming holiday season as we have a number of exciting marketing initiatives planned,” said Wang.

“Our balance sheet is healthy with a strong cash position, low level of debt and stable flow of cash from operations. We continue to make progress with our store operations and that can result in greater sales and profits over time.”

Based in Daqing, China, QKL Stores is a regional supermarket chain company operating in Northeastern China and Inner Mongolia. It operates 45 supermarkets, hypermarkets and department stores – two less than at the same time last year.