Whitbread, the owner of the Costa Coffee chain, recorded a 17% surge in its total sales in the quarter ending on November 27.Llike-for-like revenue in the UK was up 5.2% in the quarter and 5.8% year-to-date.
Good growth was seen in the hotel chain division, with total sales up by 15.4% and like-for-like up 8.5% in the quarter and 9.2% in the financial year.
Costa continued to perform strongly, growing total system sales in the 39 weeks by 15.9% to £1,022.0 million, (17.5% at constant currency). Within this, franchise sales were up 14.7% to £398.1 million.
UK Retail system sales grew by 16.7% to £552.5 million, with equity stores delivering like for like sales growth of 5.8%. We have opened 127 net new UK stores in the year to date.
Costa Enterprises (including Costa Express) grew system sales to £258.3 million, up 19.3%.
International system sales grew by 10.7% to £213.5 million (18.3% at constant currency), with a growth of 6.8% (14.8% at constant currency) in EMEI and 18.9% (25.6% at constant currency) in Costa Asia.
The company plans to open around 230 net new stores worldwide and to install around 800 Costa Express units in the full year.
Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread, commented:
“As we said in our interim results on 21st October, our strong trading momentum has continued into the third quarter, with total sales growing by 13.2% and like for like sales up 6.0%. We remain confident of delivering full year results in line with expectations, mindful that the fourth quarter last year was particularly strong, boosted by the absence of snow.
In the quarter, Premier Inn grew total sales by 15.4% and like for like sales by 8.5%, with rooms available growing by 6.2%, total revpar up 8.6% and occupancy up 2.6% pts to 84.8%. Our Restaurants continue to perform well and like for like sales grew by 1.6%. Costa once again extended its excellent track record, with total sales growth of 17.0% and UK like for like sales growth of 5.2%.
Our strong brands continue to win market share, reinforced by our ambitious organic network expansion. We remain on track to open around 4,500 new Premier Inn UK rooms and around 230 net new Costa stores worldwide this year. Our committed UK room pipeline stands at around 12,400 new rooms, with a number of attractive London freehold opportunities at various stages of negotiation.”
