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dELiA*s Q1 loss narrows, achieves 16% rise in total sales

06 Jun '06

4 min read

Direct marketing and retail company dELiA*s Inc has announced its financial results for the first quarter ended April 29th 2006.

For the first quarter, total sales rose 16 percent to $51.9 million, driven by revenue increases in both the company's Direct Segment and its Retail Segment. The first quarter loss per diluted share improved to $(0.05) as compared to a loss of $(0.58) per diluted share for the year-ago period.

First quarter total net sales increased by 16.1 percent to $51.9 million compared to $44.7 million for the same period last year. Net sales for the Direct Segment increased 19.1 percent to $37.1 million, compared with $31.2 million in the year-ago quarter. This improvement was driven by a 14.6 percent increase in catalogue circulation versus the prior year's quarter. Net sales from the company's Retail Segment increased 9.3 percent to $14.7 million compared with $13.5 million in the year-ago first quarter.

The company noted that the increase in the Retail Segment sales was driven by new store openings. It opened 4 new premier locations during the first quarter, ending the period with 61 premiere stores and 2 outlets.

The first quarter comparable store sales for premiere, or non-outlet, stores decreased 7.1 percent. The decrease, in part, was a result of a planned reduction in non-apparel merchandise.

Robert Bernard, CEO of dELiA*s, said, "Beginning with the first quarter we identified the fashion shift. Havingapproached our investment in inventory levels cautiously, gross margins improved nonetheless, however, it did impact our ability to drive same store sales. While we are pleased to have limited our exposure to markdowns, we believe that we have an opportunity to improve our processes for executing our response to changing merchandise trends and have taken actions to build a more responsive planning structure."

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