POUNDLAND's owner yesterday reiterated its confident outlook, encouraged by the size of the discount market across Europe amid present economic turmoil.

In a third quarter trading update posted yesterday, European discount retailer Pepco posted group revenues of €1.2bn (£1.01bn), with year-to-date sales hitting €3.5m.

The retailer, which also owns the Dealz and Pepco brands in Europe, said Poundland like-for-like sales had risen two per cent and 3.8 per cent on a yearon-year constant currency basis.

Pepco revenues were elevated 7.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis and 28.5 per cent year-on-year on a constant currency basis.

The budget group said it was "committed to investing in its price proposition and maintaining its market-leading variety discount offering".

A continued focus on slimming operation costs enabled the firm to keep prices low, it added.

Shoppers are now more familiar with the European discount market, which has grown since the previous financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, the firm added.

The company said it was "confident in our continued progress" and felt it was on track for "another good year" providing no "further significant deterioration in the macro trading environment". The discount retailer said it was on track to open 450 new stores in the 2022 financial year.

"Despite the challenging market environment, Pepco continues to accelerate and deliver against its successful growth strategy based around our four key pillars: bigger, better, simpler and cheaper," Trevor Masters, CEO of Pepco Group, said.

"We remain confident in the strength of our customer proposition, market positioning and in our ability to drive long-term value creation."

Earlier this year, Pepco noted consumers in the UK had been particularly wounded by higher costs of living, impacting spending.

It noted higher wages in central and eastern European markets were significantly offsetting inflationary pressures, while stagnant wage growth in western European markets had led to shoppers paring back spending on consumer goods.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper