Walgreens reports comparable sales up nearly 6% in May
Deerfield, Illinois-based drug chain Walgreens (NYSE:WAG) (NASDAQ:WAG) said Friday that total comparable sales for the month of May rose 5.6% as customer traffic and basket size increased, with the company also benefiting from calendar day shifts.
Same store front-end sales jumped 3.6% during the month, with customer traffic rising 1.6% and basket size up 2%.
Prescriptions filled at comparable stores climbed 7.1% in May, with pharmacy sales going up by 6.7%. Pharmacy sales accounted for 64.4% of total sales for the month.
The company said that calendar day shifts positively impacted prescriptions filled in stores by 1.7%, as this year's May had one additional Tuesday and one fewer Saturday than the period a year ago.
Duane Reade stores are not included in any comparable-store results, which are sales of stores open at least one year.
Total sales for the month were $6.08 billion, reflecting 7% growth from a year earlier.
Walgreens operates 8,171 locations in all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. That includes 7,714 drugstores, 192 more than a year ago, including 23 stores acquired over the last 12 months.
Separately, the company also announced that it has completed its $409 million acquisition of Drugstore.com, a deal that is expected to boost the drug chain's online initiatives and sales.
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