Soft pharmacy sales drag on Rite Aid

Prescription counts decreased a little and pharmacy same-store sales were up in August, according to numbers reported by Rite Aid Thursday.

The company, which also announced its Q2 sales figures, said that overall same-store sales increased by 1.6% in August over the same period last year, and pharmacy store sales were up 2.1% over 2014. The company also saw fewer prescriptions filled and a 222 basis point negative impact from new generic introductions.

As for the quarter, same-store sales rose 2.1% over the same time last year to $6.602 billion. Among drug store sales, prescriptions constituted 69.3% of all sales and third-party prescription sales made up 98.7% of sales.

So far in Rite Aid’s fiscal year, drug store sales are up 2.3% over last year to $13.2 billion, with an increase of 3.2% in pharmacy same-store sales.

Despite a lower monthly prescription count, so far this year the company has dispensed 0.9% more prescriptions than it did during the same period last year.

The company also reported that front-end sales rose 0.5% in the first 26 weeks of its fiscal year.