Signet Sales Up 5.6% for Holiday Season

Signet's U.S. same store sales rose 7.6%

Same store sales for Signet Jewelers rose 5.6 percent in the nine weeks to January 2, including a 7.6 percent increase in the United States, according to a report released Tuesday by the jewelry retailer’s disclosing its holiday sales and 2010 results. 

Same store sales in the UK were down 0.8 percent in the same nine-week period. For the entire year, Signet’s same store sales were down 0.6 percent, a 0.1 percent decrease in the U.S. and a 2.2 percent decline in the United Kingdom

In light of the same store sales increase over the holiday season, Signet hopes to achieve a pretax profit in a range of $222.5 million and $232.5 million for 2010.

“For the year as whole we expect to have outperformed our financial targets set out in March 2009 and, in particular, to have very significantly exceeded our free cash flow objective. We believe our long term strategy of focusing on sustainable competitive advantages in the basic retail disciplines has once again proven to be successful,” said Chief Executive Terry Burman.

Signet said that despite “an uncertain economic outlook” for the upcoming year, it will continue to do everything it can to optimize sales with differentiated product initiatives and improve its customer service.

Signet operates 1,933 specialty retail jewelry stores. The majority of stores, 1,379, are in the U.S., where it trades as Kay Jewelers, Jared The Galleria Of Jewelry and under a number of regional names. Signet also operates 554 stores in the UK, under the brand names H.Samuel, Ernest Jones and Leslie Davis.