Canada’s golf specialty retailer, Golf Town, had a strong first quarter with both new stores and old contributing to top line growth. The strong sales helped to shrink the net loss in what is typically the company’s quietest quarter.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2006, Golf Town total sales grew to CN$30.0 million (US$26.0 mm), an increase of 11.9% over the CN$26.8 million (US$21.9 mm) recorded for the comparable period in 2005. The growth in sales was largely attributable to the addition of new stores – two in early March 2005, one in late May 2005 and two more in March 2006. During the quarter, same-store sales grew at 2.5%.

Gross profit as a percentage of sales decreased slightly, to 31.9%, from 32.3% for the comparable period a year ago.

Despite the sales increases, the company was unable to post a net income for the quarter, but it did manage to slim down the net loss to CN$811,000 (US$702,000) from CN$2.1 million (US$1.7 mm) last year. Diluted earnings per share followed suit down to a loss of CN six cents (US 5¢) from a loss of CN 18 cents (US 15¢) during last year’s first quarter.