Sonic Corp.’s profit more than doubled in the second quarter, the Oklahoma City-based drive-in operator reported Monday.
Net income rose 113.3 percent in the quarter ended Feb. 28, to $3.6 million, or six cents per share, from $1.7 million in the same period last year. The company had a $900,000 tax benefit in the quarter.
Revenue in the second quarter slipped to $111.1 million, from $115.1 million in the year-earlier quarter.
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With one less day than the prior year as a result of leap year, systemwide same-store sales were flat during the second quarter, the company said. Same-store sales at company-owned drive-ins increased 1.9 percent in the quarter.
“Given more than a 1-percent negative impact from the loss of leap year day, we are pleased with our systemwide same-store sales performance,” Clifford Hudson, Sonic’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “Our innovative product pipeline and shift from local to national media expenditures are having a positive impact across our core, developing and new markets.”
The company said that during the quarter it purchased more than $6 million of stock, representing about 1 percent of its outstanding stock.
“Over the next one to three years, initiatives such as our new point-of-sale system will complement our same-store sales initiatives to increase sales and profits,” Hudson said. “This, combined with a new lower-cost, small building prototype, will improve the return on investment of new drive-ins, encouraging increased development in fiscal 2014 and subsequent years.”
Company drive-in sales in the second quarter decreased by $3.5 million compared with prior-year quarter, with the refranchising of 34 company drive-ins, Sonic said.
Sonic has more than 3,500 owned and franchised drive-in units.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
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