Walgreen Co. (WAG) Wednesday reported a 4.3 percent growth in sales at Walgreens in May. Comparable store sales, or sales at stores open for one year or more, also increased from the previous year.
The drugstore chain's sales in comparable stores increased 2.8 percent in May. Impact from generic drug introductions was 2.3 percentage points.
The Deerfield, Illinois-based company said sales in May advanced to $6.22 billion from $5.97 billion for the same month in fiscal 2012.
Total front-end sales increased 3.4 percent, while comparable store front-end sales increased 1.2 percent. Customer traffic in comparable stores decreased 3.5 percent while basket size grew 4.7 percent.
Prescriptions filled at comparable stores increased 7.1 percent in May, including 1.5 percentage points from patients filling more 90-day prescriptions. This also increased 7.5 percent on a calendar day-shift adjusted basis.
This year's May had one additional Friday and one fewer Tuesday compared with May 2012. These calendar shifts hurt prescriptions filled at comparable stores by 0.4 percentage point.
According to Walgreen, the percentage of former Express Scripts prescriptions returning to its pharmacies continued to increase in May.
Pharmacy sales increased 4.4 percent. Walgreen said pharmacy sales accounted for 63.1 percent of total sales for the month.
Comparable store pharmacy sales advanced 3.8 percent and gained by a calendar day-shift adjusted 4.2 percent. Impact from calendar day shift was 0.4 percentage point.
Calendar day-shift adjusted comparable store pharmacy sales were hurt by 3.7 percentage points due to generic drug introductions in the last 12 months.
Walgreens opened 13 stores during May, which included two relocations, and closed one store.
Total sales for the third quarter rose 3.3 percent to $18.34 billion from $17.75 billion. On average, 18 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected revenues of $18.49 billion for the quarter.
Quarterly comparable store sales increased 1.3 percent, while front-end comparable store sales grew 0.3 percent. Prescriptions filled at comparable stores increased 7.0 percent and comparable pharmacy sales rose 2.0 percent.
WAG closed at $48.03 on Tuesday.
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