Walgreens Pharmacy Sales Stun With Jump

Wallgreens (NYSE: WAG)(NASDAQ: WAG) said it registered April sales of $5,381,000,000, an increase of 11.1 percent from $4,845,355,000 for the same month in 2008. Sales in comparable store locations (those open at least a year) rose 5.7 percent, while comparable store front-end sales increased 8.9 percent.

We should note that according to Wallgreens the sales were helped because of Easter. Therefore, we need to compare April Sales of last year's March sales because Last year Easter was on March 23rd and the sales activity would be in mid March. However, this year Easter Was on April 12th.

In that case if we are saying that the higher sales are driven by Easter, we need to compare two Easter months of Walgreens sales, not by April.

April Wallgreens pharmacy sales increased 8.5 percent, while comparable pharmacy sales increased 4.0 percent. Comparable pharmacy sales were negatively impacted by 4.0 percentage points due to generic drug introductions in the last 12 months.

Based on information provided by Walgreens.