Costa and Premier Inn drive sales growth at Whitbread
Strong performances from both Costa Coffee and Premier Inn have helped drive group like-for-like sales at Whitbread up by 3.3% for the half year to 1 September.
The company saw total revenue rise 10.7% to £891.3m, up from £805.4m in the same period the year before.
Underlying pre-tax profit was up 15.2% to £174.9m, with Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants seeing underlying profits rise 8.5% to £167.1m, while Costa's profits surged 41.8% to £27.8m.
Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants opened 12 new hotels, 1,408 rooms and five restaurants over the period, while Costa grew its store network, opening 167 new stores including the 100th store in China. Costa now has 2,000 stores worldwide.
Whitbread chief executive Andy Harrison said: "We are continuing to grow our business and this year we plan to open 4,000 new Premier Inn rooms and 14 new restaurants in the UK, together with 300 Costa stores worldwide. This is another step towards our five-year growth milestones which will grow Premier Inn UK by almost 50% to 65,000 rooms and increase the Costa network by 75% to 3,500 stores worldwide, together with at least 3,000 Costa Express machines.
"Our overall first-half sales performance is the best guide to the group's underlying trading, although on a month-by-month basis trading continues to be variable in a challenging consumer environment."
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By Neil Gerrard
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