The outdoor and leisure activities retailer Kathmandu (ASX: KMD) released sales figures for the first 16 weeks of this financial year. Same-store sales were up over 3% for both Australia and New Zealand. The company said that this was in line with their normal trading pattern, and that the majority of sales of the first half are achieved in the Christmas and January trading period.
Its store expansion goal for FY2014 is to open 15 new stores; so far, two in Australia and one in New Zealand have been completed. In addition, two more stores in Melbourne and Brisbane are expected to be open and trading before Christmas.
In its AGM on 20 November, it talked about the growth in online sales and how it plans to expand that further, as well as announcing that it has developed a mobile app that customers can more easily search, research and purchase items online.
It was also announced that David Kirk, the current chairman of Trade Me Group (ASX: TME) will be appointed chairman of Kathmandu in early 2014. His experience and success at Trade Me, a well-known online marketplace and classifieds listing portal, will benefit the company as they expand the brand globally.
This is of importance because currently outside of Australia and New Zealand, its only other regional segment is the UK, and that segment has not been performing as well as expected. Kathmandu designs and develops its own products, so the brand name has come to mean quality. Using online sales and user reviews has great potential to promote the brand internationally.
The company's share price has gone up about 126% from $1.42 to $3.21 over the past 12 months.
Super Retail Group (ASX: SUL) has also continued its climb in share price, currently at $13.60, and slightly below its new all-time high of $14.09 set in late October. It operates the stores BCF, Rebel Sports and Amart Sports which retail outdoor and sporting apparel and equipment.
In its 23 October trading update covering the 16 weeks of business up to 19 October, it was seeing like-for-like sales growth for leisure and sporting retailing of 5% and 6% respectively. It is planning to open 10 more stores in each of its leisure and sports retailing divisions during FY2014.
