German DIY chain Hornbach’s turnover surpassed 4 billion euro in the past fiscal year. The overall turnover growth was 5.1%: the Dutch market achieved double-digit growth, but the German home market stagnated.
Growth thanks to sales abroad
Over the past few years, Hornbach’s growth has been because of sales abroad: just like in the past two years, sales in the eight countries outside of Germany generated the most growth. Turnover grew 9% on average, to 1.820 billion euro, outside of Germany. International sales now contribute 46.8% of sales (compared to 45% last year). Organic growth (in the current store network and without exchange rate fluctuations) reached 6.1% in international markets, up from a 5.1% like-for-like turnover growth last year.
Hornbach’s Dutch performance generated a double-digit growth for the third year in a row. Dutch CEO Evert de Goede says he is very happy with the turnover development: “Hornbach Netherlands has contributed substantially to the company’s growth. Both online and offline, because our web shop is also developing very rapidly. Hornbach is very popular here.” It also has store openings planned for Apeldoorn, Duiven, Enschede and Nijmegen.
Net German turnover grew 1.5% to 2.07 billion euro and the company also says that there was like-for-like growth in every quarter. It did not reveal how much that growth was however. It also maintained the number of stores it had in Germany: 98 stores, the same amount as it had last year.
Slight profitability growth
The Hornbach Baustoff Union division, which focuses on the DIY chain’s wholesale activities, grew 8.3% to 248 million euro, following a 4.8% growth in the year before. It currently has 29 wholesale stores, including two new locations since the third quarter.
Even though it has not formally confirmed its annual results, Hornbach forecasts it will “largely” meet its profit forecast. Its EBIT will most likely equal or slightly outgrow last year’s result (156.8 million euro). The DIY stores should perform slightly better than last year’s EBIT (97.5 million euro).
