Aéroports de Paris has delivered a double-digit rise in sales per passenger in shops in its restricted areas in the first half of the year, helping push up the company’s Retail and Services revenue by +7.6% to €439 million (US$552m).

 

Sales per pax at ADP, the operator of the two main Paris airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, jumped by +10.6% to €16.2 during a period when traffic rose by +2.0%, adding more passengers (43 million) during H1 than BAA whose +0.8% traffic growth meant an additional 42 million passengers in the same period.

 

The strong rise in per pax sales does not take into account the impact of the new S4 satellite and its extensive shopping facilities, which ADP says have had a “very promising start during the summer” and will show its true colours in the next quarter’s results. S4, opened on 28 June, is now ramping up operations: this summer the Skyteam satellite processed 118 flights per week, but from October this will rise to 165 flights per week.

 

In H1, ADP says that the total revenue from retail (rents received from shops, bars and restaurants, advertising, banking and foreign exchange activities, and car rental companies) grew by +12.9% to €164 million (see table below).

 

RETAIL SALES BOOST RENTS

Rents from shops located in restricted areas stood at €117 million up +14.4%, thanks to the increase in sales per passenger.

 

This performance was mainly attributable to the very good results of duty free and travel retail shops across all terminals at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, where sales per passenger were up by +10.2% to €30.3, almost double the average seen across the group’s airports.

 

ADP says this was driven by “the strong traffic growth of highly contributive destinations such as China (+14.7%) and Russia (+11.9%)” and the continued healthy performance of Fashion & Accessories and Gastronomy activities which were up by +20% each.

 

OVERALL RESULTS & OUTLOOK

For the group as a whole, consolidated revenue was up by +4.1 % to €1,267 million, with EBITDA virtually stable at €464 million and the net result attributable to the group down by -18.1% to €147 million.

 

ADP says it is maintaining its revenue and EBITDA targets for the full year 2012 on the assumption of moderate passenger traffic growth. It also says that EBITDA growth for the 2009-2015 period is still on track at +40% assuming: traffic growth of +3.2% per annum on average between 2010 and 2015; return on regulated asset base between +4.5% and +5.0% in 2015; sales per passenger of €19.0 in 2015; and surfaces dedicated to retail growing by +18% between 2009 and 2015, against +21% initially forecast, due to the lag of the terminal 2B refurbishment at Charles de Gaulle. The target to grow surfaces located in international areas is maintained at +35% over the same period.