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From Home Furnishing Business

Conn's Reports Record Q1 Income

June 2, 2014  by in Financial Reports, Furniture Retailing, Industry   

For the quarter ended April 30, same store sales grew 15.6 percent, on top of a 16.5 percent increase in same store sales reported a year ago; and furniture and mattress sales increased 64.7 percent and accounted for approximately one-third of total product revenue in first-quarter fiscal 2015.

Conn's also entered the Denver market with opening of two Conn's HomePlus stores.

"First quarter results met our expectations with solid performance in both the retail and credit operations," said Theodore M. Wright, The Woodlands, Texas-based Conn's chairman and chief executive officer. "Same-store sales rose 16 percent over the prior year with same store sales growth of 3 percent in the electronics category. This growth continued into May with same store sales increasing 13 percent. With the expansion of our product offerings and new store openings, furniture and mattress was our leading product category in the quarter. This favorable shift in product mix contributed to retail gross margin of 41.4 percent for the period.

"We opened two Conn's HomePlus stores in Colorado in late April, two stores in Tennessee in May and plan to open seven more stores by the end of July. For the full fiscal year, we continue to execute our plan to open 17 to 20 stores and expand our geographic footprint. All of our new stores are performing at or above our expectations. We incurred substantial costs related to these stores and the related distribution network during the quarter, which we expect to become better levered over the balance of the year. Execution in our collections operation improved during the quarter and delinquency declined as anticipated. We expect to see further execution improvement in the coming quarters."

Click here to access the complete Conn's first-quarter release.