Pepco Group, which owns Poundland, said it plans to open more stores as demand for its products got a boost from the cost-of-living crisis.
Within the Poundland Group, 70 new stores were opened, mainly in Poland under the Deelz brand and “following an encouraging performance in new and existing markets, we are further accelerating our store expansion program.”
Pepco, which bought Poundland for £610mln in 2016, said it will be targeting at least 550 net new stores in the next financial year, including expansion in new territories like Greece and Portugal.
“After another year of good progress, we are accelerating our profitable store-expansion programme – our biggest source of value creation – and store refit strategy, helping to drive like-for-like sales growth,” said chief executive Trevor Masters.
Like-for-like revenues at Poundland grew 2.6% to £1.87bn in the year-end to 30 September, said Pepco, in a year-end pre-close trading announcement.
According to a statement, it said it is “driven by the continued growth of our store footprint as we execute our expansion strategy.”
Pepco added that while inflation remains at recent historic highs, it is only running at around a third of the headline figures in its key markets Poland, Hungary and Romania.