GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Business highlights Wednesday 4 April include:
- Iata, the airline industry organization, says that traffic increased in February, up 8.6 percent for passenger traffic and 5.2 percent for cargo, but it cautions that with petrol prices rising the outlook remains fragile.
- Coty, American beauty company that also owns a number of top clothing brands such as Jill Sander and Adidas, is turning its Versoix office, opened in 2005, into a third international head office, just as the company announced its proposal to buy out Avon, a deal worth $10 billion. The Geneva office the company says in a press release, “will complement Coty headquarters activities in New York, US, and Paris, France.With a goal of further developing cross-divisional and joint headquarters collaboration among Coty professionals, the Geneva office forms a third component in Coty’s corporate headquarters structure. It includes a state-of-the-art research and development group linked to a fragrance center of excellence, global and regional commercial teams for Coty beauty and Coty prestige divisions, procurement and supply chain operations, and a regional Northern European finance center.”
- LeShop published its first quarter results Wednesday, showing a first-ever dip in sales, down 7 percent compared to the previous year: CHF38.5 million. The company notes that sales nevertheless remain strong despite the strong Swiss franc, which is responsible for cross-border shopping tourism. Mobile phones sales continue to grow strongly, up 12 percent, and they now accoount for one in eight purchases.
- Solar Impulse is warming up for a 2,500km solar-powered-only flight to Morocco in May or June, its first venture beyond Europe and over a large body of water, the Mediterranean. The trip will coincide “with the launch of construction in the region of Ouarzazate of the largest thermo-solar power plant ever built.” It will serve as the warmup for a planned 2014 round the world trip using only solar power.
- Roche, Basel-based pharmaceutical company, says it is “very disappointed” by the refusal of the board of Illumina to accept a higher buyout bid and it is now turning to shareholders to ask them to voter 18 April for the takeover.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Swiss consumers are increasingly ordering groceries online using their mobile phones, reports LeShop.ch, the Migros online store.
Sales coming in via iPhones, Androids and tablets more than doubled, to 11 percent of sales at CHF15 million. The rate of growth of mobile phone sales has been far higher than for computer-based sales shortly after they were introduced, says Switzerland’s largest grocery store chain, and it expects cell phone orders to continue to rise strongly.
LeShop says in a press release 3 January that its largest group of customers is families with small children. The average order is CHF285.
The post office’s Express service in 2011 delivered 39,000 tons of food to more than 106,000 households for LeShop. Growth was strong, 7 percent, in the first half of the year but stalled in the second half, leaving LeShop in the black, but with sales at virtually the same level as in 2010.
Coop’s younger online shop, coopathome.ch, saw 10 percent growth in 2011, TSR reported Monday, with total sales of CHF85 million, compared to LeShop’s CHF150m.
CHF/euro data from Reuters 27 August 2011 (http://www.reuters.com/finance/currencies)
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – You can pay less to colour your hair with Oreal and eat a Kellogg’s breakfast starting Monday. Migros and Coop have negotiated a second major round of price cuts with multinationals and some 2,000 products will cost less 29 August in their Swiss supermarkets and do-it-yourself stores.
The two retailers are pushing for multinationals’ lower import prices to be passed on to Swiss consumers. The Swiss franc has risen
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, the Migros cooperative group, will cut prices on some 500 products Monday 22 August. The group says it has negotiated deals with several of its suppliers to pass on their currency gains from the strong franc to Swiss consumers, through price cuts. Coop and Denner, which belongs to Migros, have both cut prices this week, although Coop has said its 50 percent cuts are designed to get rid of stock on shelves from suppliers who have not agreed to cuts: once gone, the brands will not be restocked.
The Migros reductions of 10-20 percent include: Nestlé (San Pellegrino, Nestlé Baby, etc.), Ferrero (Kinder, Nutella, etc.), Beiersdorf (Nivea), Procter & Gamble (Braun), Unilever (Axe) and L’Oréal (Studio Line), the company says in a statement 16 August.
Coop's web site and ads over the weekend said "Enough is enough", asking consumers to back the supermarket chain in its refusal to work with brands the company says are taking advantge of recent exchange rates
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss franc was traded Monday in ranges of $1.2505-1.2867 and €.8734-.9025, according to Reuters, with the franc weakening early in the day after last week’s climb, thanks largely to the Swiss National Bank’s insistence that it will intervene if the safe haven impact on the franc’s position does not end.
But by day’s end the dollar had lost ground and the rate was $1.2751 and euro investors were wary, ending the European trading day at €.8791.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the dollar’s gentle slide Monday was due to a combination of a report that manufacturing in the New York region contracted more than expected, the Treasury Department saying that “foreign investors bought a net $3.7 billion of long-term US assets in June, down sharply from May as private foreign investors sold a record amount of Treasury bonds in the month” and “a report from the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo showing confidence remained stuck at very low levels this month. The data were in line with expectations and shrugged off by equity markets.”
Reuters notes that “risk appetite” was up Monday.
Investors are looking for positive European news Tuesday from France and Germany as well as the euro region, which will post its second quarter GDP (gross domestic product) data.
Swiss supermarkets put pressure on brands
Swiss retailers who have bemoaned the Swiss franc include the large supermarkets, two of which have announced they will sell some of their more expensive brands for 50 percent to get rid of stock, then stop carrying certain brands whose manufacturers refused their demands for lower prices. Coop and Denner have both published statements about their tactics.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Supermarket cooperative group Migros posted a 20.8 percent increase in profits, CHF846 million, in 2009 despite a 3.1 percent fall in sales, the company announced Tuesday 30 March.
Turnover was CHF24.95 billion, of which retail sales were CHF21.04b.
Don't leave home without it
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Coop supermarket shoppers will be able to use the points accumulated on their Supercard fidelity card to buy selected items from next 2 November. The items, marked Supercard selection, will be updated and changed regularly, the store says.
Coop already allows its 2.8 million card users to exchange points to pay at the checkouts of their Coop department stores. One hundred points are worth CHF1.
The friendly corner newsagent in the UK is closing at the rate of over one day, a victim of competition from supermarkets, crime and the economic downturn. In 2008, 510 newsagents closed, 6.25 percent more than in 2007, reports the BBC. The national federation of retail newsagents (NFRN), which counts 17,500 members, wants the government to help newsagents to install closed-circuit cameras (CCTV) and shutters to combat crime. It is also asking the government to make a distinction between “normal crime and retail crime”. There are some 30-35,000 newsagents in Britain, 75 percent of them owned by Asians. BBC, This is Nottingham
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A battle has been brewing among supermarket chains, with lower prices the most obvious benefit to consumers. Migros Tuesday morning announced that it will lower the prices of 150 items in order to ensure its prices remain lower than those of its competitors.
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Migros, one of Switzerland’s two main supermarket chains, has come up with a surprising deal for its customers which is bound to make noise, not for the first time. Starting 30 December it is offering two one-day train passes for the price of one, CHF54 for two people to go anywhere on the public transport system covered by half-price CFF rail company cards, for a day.
There are three catches. One is that at least one of the two people must have a half-price CFF card. The tickets will be on sale until 26 January, but the number of them is limited. And during the week trips can begin only at 09:00, but the card is valid for the rest of the day, as long as transport is available.
The day passes may be used until 31 March.
Migros has caused a furor in the past with other special offers. In June 2007 it gave away Rolling Stones tickets in a lottery that provoked a black market online, but that even earlier forced the lottery authorities to take a close look at the legality of the deal.
Updated 23:05 (correction) Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Migros, Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, will be cutting back advertising for its own brands, which now account for about 90% of the store’s merchandise, president of the Migros federations, Claude Hauser, told Illustré. The move is part of a larger cost-cutting programme to reduce ad expenditure by about CHF50 million.
