Positive Start to the Business Year 2019

Dufry saw a positive start to the new business year, with our turnover increasing by 3.4%, amounting to CHF 1,882.6 million in the first quarter 2019, compared to CHF 1,820.0 million in the same period last year. In these first three months, organic growth further improved on a quarter-by-quarter basis and reached 2.0% at Group level, despite the shift of the Easter holiday into Q2 and last year’s strong performance as a base for comparison. All divisions reported positive performance, except for Central and South America, where Brazil and Argentina are still facing a challeng­ing environment. If we were to exclude Brazil and Argentina from the organic growth calculation, our growth would have amounted to 5.6%.

From a regional perspective, we saw organic growth peaking in Asia Pacific and Middle East (+17.3%) and showing a good performance in North America (+5.3%), while growth in Europe and Africa also improved, reaching 2.4%. Worth mentioning is also the ongoing success in our negotiations with suppliers and the further implementation of the Brand Plan to define individual marketing initiatives with brands. We have thus further increased our gross profit margin by 40 basis points to 60.3% and increased our gross profit to CHF 1,135.6 million.

Moving on with employee digitalization

The key story in this edition of Dufry World is an interesting article on the development of the shop floor tablet and the digitalization of our sales associates. As one of the major elements of our E-motion initiative, it shows the impressive progress we have made with this tool and the increasing amount of content available now in six languages, that supports our staff in providing our customers with a seamless shopping experience and heightened service quality. Moreover, the tablets allow our sales staff to work more effectively and with specific information, resulting in an increase in the average ticket and total sales. This initiative is also a perfect example of the ONEDUFRY philosophy: Better employee experiences that drive improved customer experiences that drive business results.

Updating investors on Dufry’s business model and further development

Also worth reading is the article on Dufry Day 2019, when we gave our investors and the financial community a general update on our business model and an insight into our ambition to further grow the company. It marks an important moment in our history, as Dufry is now a completely different company from the one it was before the transformational acquisitions and the implementation of the BOM and the ONEDUFRY initiatives. It was therefore key for us to explain the different development phases, to describe the business model today and most importantly to show how we intend to further grow Dufry and evolve the commercial model.

Thank you for your support and dedication

Focussing on the coming months, it is important that we maximize benefit from the positive start seen at the beginning of the year and from the improving growth trends. I would like to thank you for the ongoing support and dedication I can see across all our operations around the world. Let’s maintain our strong customer focus in our everyday tasks and enjoy the work we do to further improve the quality of our deliverables. I am looking forward to a successful peak season and to working with you to achieve our goals.