(Reuters) -German premium beauty retailer Douglas reported a smaller than expected drop in its quarterly core profit on Thursday, boosted by higher sales and tight cost management.
The consensus-beating results sent the company’s shares nearly 9% higher in early Frankfurt trade.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciations and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 2.9% to 158.2 million euros ($185.1 million) in Douglas’ fiscal third quarter, above the average estimate of 143.8 million euros from analysts polled by Vara Research.
“We delivered higher sales … and achieved solid overall growth despite a subdued market development in France,” Douglas CEO Sander van der Laan said in a statement. “Our largest market Germany also grew year-on-year.”
Its net sales rose 3.2% to 1 billion euros, surpassing analysts’ estimate of 972 million euros, driven by strong performance in Central and Eastern Europe.
Douglas, which has struggled with weaker consumer demand in the first quarters of the fiscal year that will end on September 30, confirmed the annual outlook it had cut in March. Back then, it had warned of a rapidly deteriorating European premium beauty market.
($1 = 0.8549 euros)
(Reporting by Cian Muenster and Linda Pasquini in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
