(Filed Under wholesale Lingerie News). Soma Intimates recorded its “22nd consecutive quarter of positive” comparable store sales,” expects to open a net 31 new stores by the end of this year and “19 to 22” in 2015, and is projecting to eventually have open “600 plus” Soma stores. This information came from executives at parent company Chico’s FAS, Inc. as they commented on the firm’s third quarter 2014 financial results.
Chico’s, the retail group which also owns the brands White House|Black Market (WH|BM) and Boston Proper, reported income for the 13 weeks ended November 1, 2014 of $26,463,000 on higher sales of $418,230,000, compared to a loss for the same quarter last year of $28,479,000 on sales of $415,819,000.
As a whole, Chico’s has been expanding the number of its stores, which totaled 1,557 as of November 1st, of which 263 were Soma full price stores and 17 were Soma outlet stores.
Currently Soma is doing considerably better than the rest of the company. In its most recent filing with the SEC, Chico’s noted that the “Soma Intimates brand experienced a mid-single digit comparable sales increase compared to a high-single digit increase in last year’s year-to-date period.” Meanwhile, at the rest of the company, “The Chico’s brand experienced a decrease of slightly less than 1% in comparable sales compared to a mid-single digit decrease in last year’s year-to-date period,” and “The WH|BM brand’s comparable sales decreased 4.0% following a 2.5% increase in last year’s year-to-date period.” At Boston Proper “net sales decreased $4.5 million , during the current year-to-date period as compared to last year, primarily reflecting decreased customer demand.”
In the conference call to discuss the third quarter results, Chico’s CEO Dave Dyer boasted, “Soma continues to strengthen its position as the bra destination for women 35 and over.” He continued, “The recently launched Love Soma Rewards loyalty program is delivering on the key goal of increasing shopping frequency. Our customers have been redeeming their earn rewards at an impressive rate. Soma continues to see strength in the sleepwear and loungewear categories which bodes well as we enter the holiday gift giving period. Additionally I would like to highlight two recent boutique openings one at Tysons Corner in Virginia, the other at Downtown Summerlin in Las Vegas. Early reads in both locations have been very positive indicating that Soma is very much at home in these A-malls. As you have heard there are many exciting things going at Soma as the brand continues to build on its positive momentum.”
The complete conference call transcript can be found here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2710905-chicos-fas-chs-ceo-dave-dyer-on-q3-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript
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