Good results for garden and tool businesses

The retail group Sears increased merchandise sales and services revenues in the domestic USA market to $ 6.789 bn (€ 5.658 bn) in the first quarter (to 3 April 2004). This indicates domestic comparable store sales growth of 1.2 per cent over the same period last year. The lawn and garden and tool businesses recorded especially strong growth. In Canada the company saw sales of $ 914 mio (€ 762 mio), which is a 19.2 per cent increase on the previous year. This rate of growth is partly due to the effects of foreign exchange.