David Jones First Half Results FY2012-13

Premium department store retailer, David Jones (ASX:DJS) has released its first half results for FY2012-13.

• DJs Total sales for the 3 months to January 26 2013 (2nd quarter) fell to $590.1 million from $598.5 million from the previous corresponding period.
• On like-for-like basis, excluding store openings and closures, sales were down 1.4 percent.
• David Jones chief executive Paul Zahra said, "We are pleased with the performance of our high margin fashion and beauty categories (such as womenswear, beauty, menswear, accessories and shoes) which delivered sales growth in second quarter 2013 and first half 2013. Our sales performance during this period was however adversely impacted by our home categories, in particular electronics, which continued to be challenging and subject to ongoing deflationary pressure."
• David Jones plans to exit its worst performing categories, including DVDs, music and games.
• David Jones posted total sales of $1.0057 billion for the first half, which is a fall of 0.07 percent compared to the previous corresponding period.