DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Walgreen Co. (WAG) said Thursday its June same-store sales rose
3.4% on a calendar shift that gave June one more weekday compared
with the same month a year earlier.
The company said pharmacy patients fill more prescriptions
during the week than on weekends, so the extra weekday helped boost
results by 1.5 percentage points.
However, same-store front-end sales fell 0.9% from a year
earlier, hurt by softer sales of seasonal items.
Same-store pharmacy sales rose 5.8%, hurt by 4.4 points because
of generic-drug introductions. Same-store prescriptions filled
increased 7.5%, and pharmacy sales made up two-thirds of total
sales for the month.
Walgreen is struggling to bounce back from a recent trend of
retail weakness for the nation's No. 2 drugstore chain by store
count after CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS).
Total sales for June rose 9% to $5.24 billion.
Walgreen's shares closed Wednesday at $29.34 and haven't traded
premarket.
-By Kerry Grace Benn, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2353;
kerry.benn@dowjones.com