General Nutrition Centers reports revenues up 4.8 percent for quarter

PITTSBURGH General Nutrition Centers last week reported revenues of $414.2 million for the period ending Sept. 30, a 4.8 percent increase over the year-ago quarter.

One of the positives helping to drive that growth for the specialty retailer is GNC’s partnership with Rite Aid—Rite Aid added 126 GNC store-within-a-store centers over the quarter—which contributed to an overall 19.4 percent lift across GNC’s manufacturing wholesale segment. “Revenue in this segment is generated primarily by third-party sales at our South Carolina manufacturing facility and wholesale and consignment sales at Rite Aid and drugstore.com,” said GNC executive vice president and chief financial officer Michael Nuzzo during a conference call with analysts last week. “The growth in this segment was the result of increased third-party sales and additional license fee revenue for Rite Aid store-within-a-store openings … Rite Aid now operates 1,682 GNC store-within-a-store locations across the U.S., versus 1,293 stores last year,” he said.

“As you can see from store openings, which have accelerated, [Rite Aid is] still very pleased with the strategy of GNC store-in-store concepts, and they clearly still show significant improvements in their results when they have a GNC store inside a Rite Aid store versus where they do not,” Nuzzo added.