Sales during the year’s first nine months were in parity with our expectations and in local currencies, approximately 21% higher than corresponding period last year. The largest increases in sales have been in sales regions Central Europe, UK & Ireland and Benelux. Scandinavia’s and North East’s sales have been in parity with last year.
The Group’s operating profit developed positively compared to corresponding period last year. Many of the companies in the group have had a positive development in profitability. The measures taken in cost-savings and streamlining the business have resulted in improved results.
During the third quarter, ITAB acquired Nordic Light Group AB, NLG, one of Scandinavia’s market leaders in retail lighting. The acquisition is in line with our strategy to offer our customers a complete shop-fitting concept. Lighting is becoming an even more important factor in the store’s shop-fitting concept in both planning and design, as well as in energy-savings, areas where NLG is prominent. Through the acquisition both NLG and ITAB strengthen their overall offer to customers and will be able to effectively meet the market demand for complete concepts from one partner. The most important synergy that will be processed is to offer lighting to a large amount of ITAB’s existing customers. NLG will therefore be able to increase their sales on the European market. The ambition is to also increase production in NLG’s facilities in China, mostly in lighting but also in shop-fitting. The lighting industry is facing a shift in technology, the LED technique. This is an area where we consider us well positioned for the future.
There is still a strong interest in self-scanning and according to our evaluation this will be a prioritized investment area for many of our customers during the coming years. We have great expectations for our fully-automatic check-out Easyflow, launched earlier this year. An attractive investment in combination with, amongst other things, the increased security in the shop that our system offers, lead to that different self-scanning concepts have good potential in becoming the new standard in the future.
The third quarter was a good quarter for the ITAB Group with good development in both sales and results. The market and the order situation for the coming quarter seem to be to our satisfaction. Bearing in mind the political and financial turbulence on the market we are well prepared to take appropriate measures if needed. Many of our customers will decide on their future establishments within the near future.
During some time now, we have focused on strengthening our overall offer and our competitiveness, through investments and complementary inputs on the technology intense areas of self-scanning and lighting. We are therefore well positioned in the areas that have the potential of constituting the largest investment areas for our customers in the future. In the long term, this will lead to better business for both ITAB and our customers!
Jönköping 26 October 2011
Ulf Rostedt, CEO ITAB Shop Concept