Pep&Co reports revenue growth in Q3

Discount retailer Pepco Group, owner of the Pep&Co and Dealz brands in mainland Europe and Poundland in the UK, has today reported strong like-for-like group revenue growth for the three months to 30 June 2021.

In Q3 group like-for-like revenue grew 29.3% and total growth reached 46.7% with revenue totalling €1.043 billion.

Pep&Co's revenue rose 59.8% in total to €562 million, with Poundland (and Dealz) rising 33.8% to €481 million.

The third quarter represented the most significantly disrupted in the prior year, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 6,895 (18.4%) total trading weeks lost in the comparative period versus 3,222 (7.5%) in the most recent reported quarter.

In this reporting period, 302 existing stores were refitted through ongoing store conversion programmes in both Pep&Co and Poundland. Pep&Co conversions updated the store look and feel while rebalancing space to general merchandise ranges, particularly home décor.

In May 2021, the company confirmed the acceleration of the Pep&Co brand, which mostly operates as a shop-in-shop at Poundland, targeting a total of 400 locations across the UK and Ireland before Autumn 2021.

Commenting on the results, Andy Bond, CEO Pepco Group, said: “We made good strategic progress in the third quarter, with all three of our brands delivering a resilient trading performance as consumers continued to come back to PEPCO, Poundland and Dealz, following the gradual easing of COVID restrictions.

“We continued to invest in the future growth of our business opening 117 new stores in the three-month period and 342 in the year to date, as well as signing an agreement to take up to 29 stores in Austria.

“Global supply chains continue to be impacted by both reduced raw material availability and input cost pressure compounded by constrained container capacity, which has the potential to introduce cost inflation starting during the autumn/winter 2021 season.

“However, our unique Far East direct sourcing operation, PGS, commands strong direct supplier and factory relationships. This allows us to continuously monitor and quickly take operational action to mitigate potential impacts, and we remain fully committed to being the lowest-price operator in all of our markets.”