Ceconomy, the parent company of MediaMarkt and Saturn, posted strong results in the first quarter of its 2024/2025 financial year, but ever less revenue actually comes from in-store sales of electronics products.
Online reaches nearly 30 %
Ceconomy’s sales rose 8.4 % from 6.98 to 7.57 billion euros, while adjusted gross profit (EBIT) went up 12.8 % to 279 million euros. It has been the eighth consecutive quarter of growth, which the company says is attributable to its conscientious omnichannel approach.
Online sales rose 15 % to more than two billion euros, and the company expects the share of online sales (29 %) to grow further in the future. In physical shops, growth was 7.2 %. However, the number of physical shops did increase, especially in Switzerland, where nineteen new branches opened. In addition, five new ‘Smart Stores’ appeared in Germany.
Services and retail media
More and more revenue came from alternative services, such as retail media, the marketplace and the Services & Solutions branch. Retail media posted impressive growth of almost 150 %, while the Marketplace saw its sales increase by 90 %. The increasing demand for sustainable products and services also played an important role in the results. In the first quarter, 25 % of sales came from sustainable products, up 13 percentage points on the previous year.
For the rest of the year, Ceconomy expects moderate sales growth, but with a clear improvement in profitability. Most of the growth will come from the DACH and Western/Southern Europe regions. Ceconomy also features on the radar of JD.com, one of the largest e-commerce companies in China. JD.com is showing renewed interest in acquiring Ceconomy, potentially to expand outside the cooling Chinese market.
