Walgreens monthly sales rise 9.6%

DEERFIELD, Ill. Walgreens today reported January sales of $5 billion, an increase of 9.6% from $4.5 billion for the same month in 2007. The company reported a comparable-store sales gain of 3.8%, while comparable store front-end sales increased 3.1% during January.

Walgreens said that January pharmacy sales increased 10%, with comparable-pharmacy sales increasing 4.2%. Comparable-pharmacy sales were negatively impacted by 4.2 percentage points due to generic drug introductions in the last 12 months. Total prescriptions filled at comparable stores increased 2.9 percent. Pharmacy sales accounted for 66.9% of total sales for the month.

According to Walgreens, there was some improvement from December in cough and cold product sales, but the category continues to show weakness compared to a year ago. Impacting pharmacy sales was a milder flu season, which hurt the number of prescriptions filled by 1.8 percentage points.

Fiscal 2008 year-to-date sales for the five months were $24.5 billion up 9.7% from $22.3 billion. Comparable-store sales for the fiscal year to date increased 4.5%.