Clas Ohlson has reported soft sales growth but strong earnings in the last quarter due to lower footfall during the summer months. ?

“We are closing the first quarter with sales of 1,783 MSEK, up 1% year-on-year. Operating profit increased by 33% to 100 MSEK,” said president and CEO Lotta Lyrå. “During the quarter Clas Ohlson increased sales by 1% to 1,783 MSEK. Accordingly, we can report a slightly softer sales trend mainly with the latter half of the summer being weak. During the period we have experienced a challenge primarily in terms of traffic to stores and did not experience full leverage on our seasonal products. Nevertheless, we noted a number of successful product launches during the quarter, such as our own Workwear by Clas Ohlson collection and more than 3,300 new products in all of our hardware, electrical, multimedia, home and leisure categories. ?Sales for August display the same trend as that seen in the quarter, totalling 671 MSEK and representing an increase of 1% compared with August 2016. ?

“Work on enhancing the relevance of our offering is progressing. We continued to develop our service offering in the summer months, for example, with the launch of tool hire and installation services, which we will see even more of in the future. Several exciting product launches in the pipeline include a new range of indoor lighting that was recently rolled out in our channels.

“A step toward greater availability for our customers is the focus on our compact store format. Clas Ohlson’s first Compact Store in Finland was opened during the quarter. The new store in Helsinki offers a huge variety of smart products and practical solutions in a smaller retail space but with greater availability.

“This is my first quarterly report in my role as president and CEO of Clas Ohlson. I see a solid basis for development and long-term growth and immense potential for new opportunities going forward. We now start the work to evaluate these opportunities but first of all we will close our 2016/17 financial year at our AGM at the distribution centre in Insjön on Saturday.