Walgreen’s

Walgreen Co. (Deerfield, Ill.) reported its largest quarterly earnings increase in the last 16 quarters and another record quarter of both sales and earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2005.

Net earnings for the quarter ended Nov. 30, 2004, were up 30.5 percent. Sales increased 13.4 percent and same-store sales were up 9.4 percent.

Prescription sales, which accounted for 65 percent of sales in the quarter, climbed 14.4 percent. Prescription sales in comparable stores rose 11.3 percent.

“Earnings this quarter were powered by solid prescription and general merchandise sales, as well as our second straight quarter of significantly higher gross profit margins,” said chairman and ceo Dave Bernauer.

“We’re incurring significant costs with our conversion to digital labs,” said president Jeff Rein, “but those are far outweighed by improved customer satisfaction and better gross profit.” All Walgreen stores offer 4×6 photo-quality prints from digital cameras for 29 cents per print.