May 7 - Pierre-Olivier Beckers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Delhaize Group, commented: "In this increasingly uncertain economic environment, all of our operating companies have focused successfully on keeping their customers loyal to their stores, providing strong revenue growth in the first quarter. Our competitive pricing and growing private label offering in particular have been instrumental in assuring sales momentum. We continue to focus on many sales and cost efficiency initiatives that will have increased impact in the second part of the year and will allow us to continue to offer highly competitive prices and to support our profitability. We fully expect to emerge from the weaker economic environment an even stronger company than we are today".
Financial Highlights First Quarter 2008
Solid revenue growth: +4.9% at identical exchange rates
Strong organic revenue growth of +5.4%
Continued strong comparable store sales in the U.S. (+3.5%), continued improvement of comparable store sales growth in Belgium (+2.0%)
Excellent revenue growth (+15.0%) and operating profit growth (+55.8%) in Greece
Net profit from continuing operations increase of 4.6% at identical exchange rates
Other Highlights
Confirmation of our 2008 earnings guidance
