Net sales fell 2.0 percent during the company’s second quarter, down from €587m in the corresponding quarter for 2008, to $587m, likewise key same-store sales fell by 3.7 percent for the same period.
The company is due to announce its earnings for the second quarter on January 27, and will be discussing the performance in a subsequent conference call the same day.
Tightening household budgets has made falling sales a familiar tale for the company, but with the United States and some of the key European economies starting to pull out of the recession, things might be starting to look up.
Company CEO Paul Finkelstein said that in December the duration of salon visits had begun to lengthen giving the company reason to believe that consumers are regaining the confidence to spend more on their hair care.
"While it's difficult to predict when customer visitation patterns will completely anniversary and stabilize, we continue to believe same-store sales in the second half of our current fiscal year should improve over the first half of the year,“ Finkelstein said.
Fiscal 2010 forecast remains unchanged
However, despite the positive signs that consumers are returning to the salons, the company was not tempted to upgrade its forecast for the rest of the financial year.
"Our expectations for fiscal year 2010 are unchanged, with same-store sales estimated to be in a range of negative three percent to positive one percent, and operational EBITDA in a range of $200 million to $240 million."
For the full year 2009 the company recorded a turnover of $1.83bn, compared to $1.86bn in 2008, a fall of 1.6 percent. Net income for the year came in at a loss of $124.4m, compared to a profit of $85.2m in 2008.
For the 2010 financial year the company estimates same store sales to be in the range of negative 3.0 percent to positive 1.0 percent – an estimate that underlines the problem caused by volatility in the consumer economy.