Costa outperformed other Whitbread brands, with total worldwide sales up 16.7% for the period and UK like for like sales up by 4.6% for the 24 weeks to 13 August.
Whitbread reports a good 2015 Q2 with total sales up 11.1% for the period and is on-track for full year expectations.
Costa, which opened 105 units during the period, plans to open c220 net new stores, including the closure of c60 lower margin franchise stores in petrol stations following their disposal by Esso. It also plans to install between 700-800 net Costa Express machines in the year.
Whitbread said Costa Enterprises (including Costa Express UK & International) delivered system sales of £175m, up 15.5%. Costa Express maintained its success with the installation of a further 379 Costa Express machines taking the total to 4,671.
International system sales grew by 13.6% to £144.1m(13.6% at constant currency). There were 11 net new stores were opened in the period with two in EMEI and nine in Asia.
Andy Harrison, chief executive of Whitbread said: “We are continuing to deliver our ambitious organic growth plans with another good quarter, growing total sales by 11.1% and like for like sales by 3.3% for the 11 weeks to 13 August.
“In the year ended 26 February 2015, Whitbread reported a 13.7% increase in group revenue to £2,608.1m and underlying profit before tax of £488.1m, up 18.5%.
“Our first half performance keeps us on track to deliver full year expectations, as well as our ambitious growth milestones. This year we plan to open around 5,500 UK rooms, around 220 net new Costa stores worldwide and to install 700-800 new Costa Express machines. Our committed UK hotel pipeline has grown to 14,106 rooms,” Harrison said.
Restaurants delivered total sales growth of 1.7% and like for like sales growth of 0.3% for the 24 weeks, ahead of a soft pub restaurant market outside the M25.
Premier Inn grew total sales by 11.6% with rooms available growing by 7.9%, total revpar growing by 3.9% and occupancy remaining high at 87.0%.
Harrison said: “We are particularly pleased with our London performance where we grew total sales by 21.1%, driven by a 20.3% growth in rooms available, a 1.5% increase in total revpar, as well as an increase in our occupancy by 0.3% pts to 92.2%. In the regions we delivered good total sales growth of 9.2%, growing rooms available by 6.2% and total revpar by 3.3% with good occupancy of 86.2%. This was against strong comparatives which benefitted from the Commonwealth Games and the Farnborough Airshow last year. Our Restaurants business outperformed a continuing soft pub restaurant market, with like for like sales growth of 0.6%. Costa maintained its rapid growth with worldwide sales growing by 16.2% and UK Retail system sales up 14.8%. In the UK like for like sales growth was good at 4.0%, against a strong performance last year. August is often affected by weather and holiday patterns and trading this August, across all our brands, was softer than expected against strong comparatives from an excellent month last year.
“We are developing plans to adopt the recently announced National Living Wage. We shall mitigate this substantial cost increase over time with a combination of productivity improvements, boosted by investment in systems and training, efficiency savings and some selective price increases. We shall announce more details of our plans with our Interim Results on 20 October 2015.”
