FRANCE/INTERNATIONAL. Lagardère Travel Retail today reported a strong first-half performance, with revenue reaching €1,688 million, up +103.2% on a reported basis and +97.2% like-for- like.
The difference between reported and like-for-like data is attributable to a €5 million negative scope impact and a €64 million positive currency effect linked chiefly to the appreciation of the US Dollar (€43 million) and Chinese Yuan (€9 million).
Like-for-like growth of +96.8% in the first quarter was followed by a +97.5% leap year-on-year in the second quarter.
On a like-for-like basis revenue in France surged +120.1% (-31% versus first-half 2019) on the back of the recovery in international air traffic, especially for flights to Europe and to the USA.
The EMEA region (excluding France) saw revenue climb by +148.2% (-16.5% versus first-half 2019) due to the strong rally in regional and transatlantic travel, particularly in Western Europe and Poland.
The Americas also reported strong revenue growth of +78.5% (-4.2% versus first-half 2019) over the first half, with sales in the USA up +64.2% already having picked up as from the second quarter of 2021. Canada (+584%) benefited from a low comparison basis due to health restrictions in the second quarter of last year.
Asia Pacific revenue climbed +1.6%, thanks to the Pacific zone, with the zero-Covid policy in China severely hampering the recovery in domestic and international Chinese air passenger traffic.
Lagardère Travel Retail reported €26 million in recurring EBIT, an improvement of €122 million on H1 2021.
Lagardère Travel Retail Chairman & CEO Dag Rasmussen hailed the half-year performance, noting the strong impact of traffic recovery in the US and in Europe.
He said: “Testament to the dynamic recovery of air travel and to the continued mobilisation of our teams to create efficiency gains everywhere, we are thrilled to announce an exceptional consolidated revenue of €1,688 million, twice as much as H1 2021.
“We’ve posted double to triple-digit growth in each region where we operate, with the exception of China where Covid and related sanitary measures have continued to severely hamper business performance in the first quarter. We have also achieved an operational result of €26 million, up €122 million compared to the first half of last year, and have managed to bring our flow-through (impact of sales decrease over operational result) down to an unprecedentedly low level, 6.7%.
“The remarkable performance in the first semester fuels our confidence for a strong rest of the year, even if uncertainty remains the name of the game. Most notably, we must be careful about the consequences the economic crisis and the war in Ukraine could create in months to come. We must also look closely at how the travel retail market is reshaping.
“There are certainly very interesting times ahead for our industry and we are confident that Lagardère Travel Retail is equipped to continue its steady development and growth. Our long-standing expertise to developing holistic customer journeys, via a three business lines model, is the right strategy, one we have been pursuing since 2012. We believe changing market dynamics will open up more opportunities for us to seize, not less.”
He added: “Our teams have continued to deliver remarkable efforts to realise the ambitions of our large-scale business transformation programme – LEaP – and we are fully on track to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves in terms of efficiency and productivity gains.
“We have renewed our contract with ADP to continue to deliver our operational excellence to passengers in Paris for the next decade, we have joined forces with AWPL in the Pacific to become the undisputed leader in travel essentials across the Pacific region, are seeking F&B leadership in the Middle East with a new partnership with HWH, and are continuing the dynamic development of our network across all three business lines.
“All these are some of the seeds which will fuel our growth for many years to come. Finally, we are becoming more bullish in terms of achieving CSR leadership, and have announced a market-leading ambition to be contributing to carbon neutrality by the end of 2023.”
