Seven-Eleven’s revenue declines for three consecutive months…is something unusual happening? The monthly performance data for June to August 2024 announced by the three major convenience store chains is as follows. ◯ Seven-Eleven (Seven & i Holdings (HD)) existing store sales June: 99.5% (down 0.5%) compared to the same month last year July: 99.4% (down 0.6%) compared to the same month last year August: 99.8% (down 0.2%) compared to the same month last year ◯ FamilyMart existing store sales June: 102.9% (up 2.9%) compared to the same month last year July: 101.6% (up 1.6%) compared to the same month last year August : 101.2% (1.2% increase) ◯ Lawson’s existing store sales June: 104.6% (4.6% increase) compared to the same month last year July: 102.7% (2.7% increase) August: 102% (2.0% increase) While FamilyMart and Lawson have seen year-on-year sales increases for three consecutive months, Seven-Eleven has seen year-on-year sales decline for three consecutive months. I’m sure many people were surprised by this fact. Speaking of Seven-Eleven, there have been daily reports recently about its parent company, Seven & i Holdings, receiving an acquisition proposal from Canadian retail giant Alimentation Couche-Tard. On September 6th, Seven & i Holdings announced that it would not accept Couche-Tard’s acquisition proposal of approximately 39 billion dollars (approximately 5.5 trillion yen), saying that the proposal “significantly undervalues our company’s value.” On the following day, the 8th, Couche-Tard issued a statement saying, “Through this business integration, we will be able to produce greater results than we could have achieved alone,” and indicated its intention to continue negotiations with Seven & I. Later, on the 13th, the Ministry of Finance announced that Seven & i Holdings had been changed to a “core industry” under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act, which means that prior notification is generally required when receiving investment from overseas investors. Following this announcement, some are of the opinion that the tightening of regulations has made it more difficult for Couche-Tard to make any acquisitions. Returning to the topic of convenience store performance, looking at same-store sales for the past three months, it appears that Seven-Eleven is the only one losing out. Is something unusual happening at this industry leader, which operates over 20,000 stores in Japan? Let’s analyze monthly trends over the past five years to see if it is truly the “convenience store king.”
>>1 is based on performance up until last month, but the Pacific side west of Kanto continued to experience scorching heat even into September, so removing Sacre from the ice cream section was a bad move. I used to find that place very useful because it makes my body really cold, but they only put cream ice creams in there, they don’t seem to understand anything. In hot weather, provide ice cream. Well, I guess people who only plan events in air-conditioned rooms wouldn’t understand.
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