Hornbach-Baumarkt-AG Group

42 GROUP MANAGEMENT REPORT Sales Performance
unsettled and at times overly wet summer, a factor that
left its mark on garden product sales in particular. For the
second quarter as a whole, however, we managed to post
pleasing sales growth, with like-for-like growth of 2.8%.
By the end of the first six months, our cumulative sales
were 1.3% ahead of the previous year’s record figure.
Customer demand was more subdued in the second half of
the financial year compared with the strong growth rates
seen a year earlier. This also reflected the decline in consumer
confidence since June 2012, a key indicator that
would only recover at the beginning of 2013. The bad news
surrounding the euro sovereign debt crisis and the macroeconomic
slowdown did not simply pass the Germans by,
even if their confidence held up well compared with other
Europeans. Our like-for-like sales performance in Germany
in the period from December 2012 to February 2013 was
additionally burdened by calendar-related factors – our
stores had three business days fewer than in the previous
year – and the early onset of what would turn out to be a
severe winter. In 2012/2013 as a whole, we nevertheless
managed to maintain the level of sales achieved following
strong growth in the previous year.
HORNBACH once again outperformed its competitors in
Germany by a significant margin. According to the BHB
sector association, the DIY sector reported a downturn in
like-for-like sales by 0.8% in the period from January to
December 2012. By contrast, our domestic stores posted
slight sales growth in the 2012 calendar year, thus outperforming
the German sector average by around one-and-ahalf
percentage points. HORNBACH thus further expanded
its market position. As a percentage of aggregate sales at
all German DIY stores and garden centers (€ 22.4 billion),
HORNBACH’s market share grew from 9.2% to 9.3%. If the
calculation is based only on those DIY stores and garden
centers with sales areas of more than 1,000 m² in Germany
(market volume: € 18.6 billion), then we increased
our market share in this segment from 11.0% to 11.1%.
Overall, our retail concept, with its particular focus on the
needs of project customers, enabled us to benefit to an
above-average extent from demand in the German housing
construction and renovation business. This success was
also driven by HORNBACH’s online store
(www.hornbach.de), which has impacted positively on
brand building and on customer retention levels.
• Other European countries
Like-for-like sales outside Germany declined by 3.2% in
the 2012/2013 financial year (including currency items: by
3.3%). This weaker sales performance in line with expectations
was mainly due to the faltering economic situation
across large parts of Europe on account of the debt crisis.
Consumer uncertainty was far more pronounced here than
in Germany in the second half of the financial year. As
2012 progressed, private households in various European
countries stepped firmly on the brakes in terms of their
consumer spending. This situation was exacerbated by restrictions
in the housing construction and real estate sector,
which also left their mark on the DIY business. The
Netherlands, for example, has witnessed a severe crisis in
its real estate sector now that mortgage interest will no
longer be fully deductible for tax purposes. Our stores in
Austria, where we managed to uphold the high level of
like-for-like sales attained in the previous year, were able
to escape this overall downward trend. In Romania, we
successfully achieved a turnaround in the year under report.
Here, we defied the negative market trend by generating
like-for-like sales growth for the first time since the
2008/2009 financial year.
Alongside our own sales performance, comparison with developments
in the overall sector is also highly significant.
Based on the information available, in the year under report
HORNBACH significantly outperformed its competitors
in five out of seven countries outside Germany, and thus
acquired further market share despite the tough economic
climate. In two countries, our figures were consistent with
the sector average.