OREANDA-NEWS  On 23 October OJSC Pharmacy Chain 36.6 [RTS:APTK; MICEX:RU14APTK1007] the leading Russian pharmaceutical retailer announced unaudited sales and operational results according to the management accounts.

Group sales[1]:

Y-o-Y in 9M 2008 Group’s consolidated sales increased by 38,6% and reached USD  820,7 million.

Sales of the retail unit grew by 42,9% and reached USD  655,6 million.

Sales of the production unit Veropharm grew by 38.2% and reached USD 128,4

Sales of Early Learning Center grew by 110.5% to USD 3.3 million

Other non-core businesses declined by 14,5% as the Company no longer consolidates the operation of European Medical Center.

Retail:

As of the end of 9M 2008 Pharmacy Chain 36.6 operates 1168 stores in 29 regions of Russia.

During Q3 2008 29 stores were opened organically and 52 were closed; 5 stores rebranded and 2 reformatted.

As of the end of 9M 2008 Pharmacy Chain 36.6 operates 10 ELC stores, 13 stand-alone optical outlets and 22 additional optical departments within pharmacies.

At the end of September, the Company successfully moved its National distribution center to a new location in Istrinsky region nearby Moscow and warehouse operations have been outsourced to a professional pharmaceutical logistics service provider, OOO "Pharmatsevticheskiye Terminaly". The center is now fully operational.

Operational data for the retail unit

During 9 months of 2008, 77.4 million purchases were made in Pharmacy Chain 36.6, which is 21% higher than in comparable period of 2007.

In Q3 2008 average check across the network reached USD  8.36, in Moscow USD  10.09, an increase over the comparable period of the previous year 15.2% and 13.7% respectively.

Average sales floor size at the end of Q3 is 61.4 sq meters, a decrease of 0.5% versus 2007.

Like-For-Like sales in comparable stores[3]

As of the end of Q3 2008 the Company operates 535 comparable stores representing 55% of sales and 51% of traffic in the retail unit.

The L-F-L sales growth in these stores in 9M 2008 reached 17% as compared to 9M 2007 while the traffic decreased by 7%:

[1] Hereinafter – these financial indicators may vary from the consolidated  financial  reporting prepared in accordance with IFRS.

[2] Due to organizational changes Northwest is now managed by Moscow-Central. In addition, Urals is broken into two units: North Urals and South Urals.

[3] Comparable stores are defined as stores:

Opened or acquired 24 months from the current reporting period, and

Neither rebranded nor reformatted or somehow significantly changed during last 24 months, and

Not closed in the current reporting period.

Detailed information are available here.