Albert Heijn parent Ahold Delhaize expecting lower profit margin compared to 2024

Ahold Delhaize saw its margins on sales in the United States decline last quarter. This is because the Albert Heijn parent company has implemented many price reductions at its chains in the U.S., but this has led to an increase in sales. Despite the current trade war, the company is sticking to its financial goals for the year.

One of the company’s chains in the U.S., Giant Food, has expanded its “Fresh Low Prices” campaign, which has led to a price decrease for hundreds of products. Prices also dropped at Stop & Shop. The profit margins on products from the American market came out at an average of 4.4 percent. This margin was at 4.6 percent at the same time last year.

There was a higher profit margin per product in Europe, despite difficult negotiations with A-brands regarding the prices. The margins were 3.4 percent lower in Europe than in the U.S., where Ahold Delhaize currently gets the majority of its turnover. The positive results in Europe, therefore, did not prevent the group-wide margin from falling slightly.

Ahold Delhaize’s total sales, which include the Dutch webstore Bol, went up by over 7 percent to 23.3 billion euros. This increase was significant in Europe.

This is partly due to Ahold Delhaize’s takeover of the Romanian supermarket chain Profi. The bottom line was 554 million euros, compared to 513 million euros a year ago.

The company’s CEO, Frans Muller, told Bloomberg TV that he sees this as strong results, including the online sales. However, he did admit there is a lot of uncertainty for the future due to the trade war.

Muller also warned about the changing exchange rates in the quarterly figures. This mainly concerns the declining value of the dollar, which can affect the results. For the whole of this year, the group is still counting on a margin of around 4 percent.