Total sales at CVS drugstores for the five-week period ending Oct. 1 rose 7.3 percent above sales from the same period last year, the Woonsocket-based pharmacy chain reported Oct. 6.
CVS Corp. said sales increased from $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion. Pharmacy sales were 71 percent of total company sales.
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Sales at pharmacies open for more than one year – or “same store” sales – increased 5.6 percent from the same five-week period last year. Sales were up despite an estimated 1.7-percent revenue dip attributed to the introduction of generic drugs that replaced more expensive brand name medications, CVS reported.
It is unclear how much hurricanes Katrina and Rita hurt sales during the month.
The company said sales from the 31 stores that closed for seven days or more due to the hurricanes were not factored into same store sales. A company spokesman declined to comment on how much the closures impacted sales during the five-week period ending Oct. 1.
Same store sales in September benefited from 1,268 Eckerd drugstores CVS acquired July 31, 2004, which positively impacted sales by about 1.5 percent, according to the pharmacy.
However, it was the first month since CVS began factoring in business from the Eckerd drugstores – which represent 23.4 percent of its 5,461 pharmacies – that total sales did not increase by a double-digit percentage.
“This is because during the first 12 months, for total sales we were comparing a much larger number of stores – existing CVS stores plus the acquired Eckerd locations – against the sales of just the CVS stores prior to the acquisition,” wrote Michael J. DeAngelis, a spokesman for CVS, in a Oct. 11 e-mail.
“After 12 months,” DeAngelis wrote, “the acquired locations (became) part of our same store sales calculation, so sales results are more comparable. … The acquired stores improved our same store sales by 150 basis points, contributing very positively to our performance due to the turnaround these locations have experienced from pre-acquisition.”
Still, CVS lowered its earnings projections for the third quarter from a range of 29 cents to 31 cents to 29 cents to 30 cents per diluted share of company stock. The pharmacy chain plans to announce quarterly earnings on Nov. 3, according to a company statement.
The value of CVS stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, has dropped in the days since the company adjusted earnings projections. Between Oct. 6 and Oct. 12 at 9:37 a.m., the stock had declined about $2.50 to $24.79 per share.
Despite the recent drop in its stock value, CVS increased sales 25.9 percent during the first 39 weeks of 2005 compared to the same period a year prior, from $21.7 billion to $27.3 billion. Those gains, naturally, reflect the impact of the Eckerd acquisition, and same store sales for the 39-week period increased 6.5 percent.
CVS is the largest pharmacy chain in the country with 5,461 locations in 37 states and the District of Columbia.
