业绩不好怪暖冬

英国市占率最高的Costa咖啡表现可不尽人意，母公司Whitbread表示：就赖这个暖冬。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

leisure 空闲['leʒə]

like-for-like sales 同比销售额

preliminary 初步措施[prɪ'lɪmɪn(ə)rɪ]

in line with 与…一致

lust 强烈的欲望[lʌst]

on a budget 避免不必要的开支

阅读即将开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用时间，并对照我们在文章最后给出的参考值来估算您的阅读速度。

Whitbread blames warm winter for slowing sales growth at Costa（468words）

By Nathalie Thomas and Aliya Ram

* * *

Sales growth at Costa Coffee has slowed considerably this year, with owner Whitbread blaming a combination of warm winter weather and a fall in the number of shoppers heading out to high streets.

Shares in Whitbread fell more than 5 per cent to £38.30 by midday on Thursday after the leisure group reported like-for-like sales growth of just 0.5 per cent at Costa Coffee in the 11 weeks to February 11. In the 50 weeks to February 11, sales growth was 3 per cent.

Revenue at Whitbread’s other main business, the Premier Inn budget hotel chain, was 2.2 per cent higher in the 11 weeks to February 11, also missing analysts’ expectations.

This meant like-for-like sales growth across the group, which also owns restaurants that are often attached to its Premier Inn hotels, rose by a muted 1.7 per cent in the final quarter compared with 3.5 per cent growth in the previous three months.

Before Thursday’s trading update, analysts had been expecting fourth-quarter like-for-like sales growth at Premier Inn of 3 per cent and an increase of 3 per cent at Costa.

As well as warmer weather contributing to lower footfall, Nicholas Cadbury, chief financial officer at Whitbread, said Costa’s sales growth had been hit by a shortage of space in the stores. He dismissed claims that Costa was facing a longer-term increase in competition from independent rivals.

“[The stores] were built in a different age when we weren’t expecting 10 years of like-for-like growth so that’s been a headwind for us,” he said. “Even if there’s footfall, growth is flat if you can’t fit people [inside].”

Costa plans to open 200 new stores internationally this year and a further 230 in 2017.

Mark Brumby, consumer analyst at Langton Capital, said the coffee market in the UK was maturing, “even if it is not mature in the absolute sense of the word”.

Vicki Stern, analyst at Barclays, said investors would be watching a strategy update in April, when Costa will report its first round of preliminary results since Alison Brittain took the top job from Andy Harrison in January.

Despite the weaker than expected results, Ms Brittain insisted the company had “another good trading period” and full-year pre-tax profits are likely to be in line with expectations.

Until last year, Whitbread appeared to be able to do very little wrong. Britons’ lust for milky coffees showed no sign of abating while Premier Inn also gained traction with families and business people who were looking to travel on a budget.

Whitbread’s shares hit a high of £54.40 in April last year but have since lost more than 25 per cent. The shares have fallen more than 9 per cent since mid-December, when Ms Brittain

admitted there was “work to do” as its third-quarter results fell short of expectations.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. What is Whitbread’s other main business except coffee?

a. education

b. media

c. hotle

d. tourism

2. What is the result of warmer weather as Whitbread’s CFO said?

a. higher raw material price

b. lower footfall

c. the difficulty in fresh-keeping

d. competition from independent rivals

3. How many Costa stores will be opened all over the world this year in the plan?

a. 200

b. 230

c. 110

d. 220

4. What kind of hotel is the Premier Inn?

a. luxury botel

b. motel

c. capsule apartment

d. budget hotel

[1] 答案c. hotle

解释：Whitbread旗下掌握科斯塔咖啡（Costa Coffee）及普瑞米尔酒店（Premier Inn）。

[2] 答案b. lower footfall

解释：文章第六段。

[3] 答案a. 200

解释：预计今年全球将布局200家新店，2017年还计划再开230家。

[4] 答案d. budget hotel

解释：由倒数第二段Premier被家庭出游和商务出行中想要节省的用户所选择，可以推断出它是经济型酒店。