West Marine, Inc. reported that net sales for the five weeks ended March 29, 2003 were $55.5 million, a 17.1% increase from net sales of $47.4 million for the same period a year ago. Comparable store net sales for the five weeks ended March 29, 2003 decreased 10.3% from the same period a year ago.
Ne
t sales for the thirteen weeks ended March 29, 2003 were $111.1 million, an increase of 14.3% from net sales of $97.2 million for the same period a year ago. Comparable store net sales for the latest thirteen weeks decreased 10.2% compared to the same period a year ago.
John Edmondson, President and CEO of West Marine said, “As previously stated, we knew March would be a challenging sales month. Our sales results were very close to our expectations. Our March comparable sales by region were Northeast -15.7%, West Coast -14.6% and Southeast -6.2%. However, we were again pleased with our gross margin improvement. As a result, we remain comfortable with the first quarter consensus estimate of a loss of ($0.23) per share for the first quarter before certain items associated with the BoatU.S. acquisition. Our integration of BoatU.S. was completed ahead of schedule in the middle of March.”
