Tokyo, July 7 - Japan's second-largest retailer, Aeon Co Ltd, on Tuesday posted a 62 percent drop in quarterly profit as a slide in consumer spending hit its supermarkets and its U.S. women's clothing unit Talbots.
Aeon, which operates the Jusco supermarket chain, and its rivals have been suffering as consumers cut back on purchases of clothing and other non-food items.
The company, which runs 600 supermarkets, 1,200 grocery stores and thousands of specialty stores, said operating profit fell to 8.72 billion yen ($91.5 million) during its March-May first quarter.
Same-store sales at its core supermarket operation fell 94 percent from the previous year, hurt by a drop in higher-margin clothing sales, despite aggressive cost-cutting and an expanded offering of store-brand items.
U.S. unit Talbots, which mainly caters to women over 35, posted a loss for the quarter, although the loss was narrower than expected thanks to aggressive restructuring moves. Talbots has also announced further job cuts and the sale of its J.Jill division.
For the full year through February, Aeon kept its operating profit forecast of 130-140 billion yen, up 4.5-12.6 percent from the previous year and above an average estimate of 128.7 billion yen in a poll of 13 analysts by Thomson Reuters.
Last week, larger rival Seven & I Holdings posted a bigger-than-expected 17.5 percent decline in its first-quarter operating profit, hurt by a dismal performance by its supermarket and department store divisions.
Shares of Aeon fell 1.9 percent to 878 yen before the announcement. The stock has fallen 32 percent in the past 12 months, underperforming an 18 percent decline in the Tokyo stock exchange's retail subindex.