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Published on August 25, 2007

The company operates 4,055 7-Eleven stores, of which 43 per cent are owned by franchisees and 57 per cent by the company. It expects to increase the ratio of franchised stores to 50 per cent in the next two years, managing director Piyawat Titasattavorakul said yesterday.

Piyawat said CP Seven Eleven was still optimistic about its growth this year, which it expects to be 15 per cent. An optimistic sales target has been set despite the decline in consumer confidence and spending power witnessed from the second quarter. This has resulted in a sharp decline in store-sales growth, from 7-8 per cent in the first quarter to only 1-3 per cent in the second.

"Regardless of the economic downturn and fall in consumer confidence and spending power, we started launching more aggressive promotional campaigns as well as product assortment programmes since the second quarter of this year, to stimulate the growth of our convenience store sales," said Piyawat.

"We'll continue to conduct our promotional activities more aggressively, to boost our store growth in the second half of the year. We hope our efforts will bear fruit and grow our revenues 15 per cent for the entire year."

He added that during the first six months, store sales stood at Bt66,595 per outlet per day, up from Bt65,570 in the same period last year.

CP Seven Eleven yesterday reported revenues of Bt104.87 billion and a net profit of Bt1.33 billion last year. Of the revenues, 73 per cent came from Thailand and 27 per cent from China, where it operated the Lotus Supercentre stores.

The company's consolidated revenues in the first half of this year were posted at Bt56.2 billion, up from Bt51.1 billion in the same period last year. It achieved a net profit of Bt850 million in the first half, down from Bt877 million before. The decline in the net profit resulted from the loss of its supercentre business in China.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation