2nd UPDATE: Ahold 1Q Sales +15%, On Robust Sales, Strong Dollar

Food retailer Royal Ahold NV (AH.AE) Wednesday posted a higher-than-expected rise in first-quarter revenue, due to robust sales at all of its key chains and the stronger dollar, boosting its shares.

Ahold's sales rose 15.2% to EUR8.7 billion from EUR7.51 billion a year earlier, in line with a Dow Jones Newswires poll of six analysts which called for EUR8.6 billion. In constant currencies, they were 6.2% higher.

Sales at Ahold's key U.S. chains, Stop & Shop and Giant-Landover, rose 3.7% to $6.79 billion from $6.55 billion a year earlier. Translated into euros, net sales in the U.S. rose 19.2%, with same-store sales up 3.1% at Stop & Shop and 3.6% at Giant-Landover, Ahold said.

"In Europe and the U.S., our performance remained solid and we continued to focus on striking a balance between sales growth, market share and margin," the company said in a statement.

At 0828 GMT, Ahold shares traded up 5.7% at EUR8.71 in an overall higher AEX market. Its shares have fallen around 11% over the past 12 months, strongly outperforming the AEX market, which has fallen around 47%.

SNS Securities analyst Richard Withagen said Ahold's sales were "very good," and noted that the retailer's performance was better-than-expected at almost all of its operations, particularly at the Giant-Landover chain. Withagen rates Ahold at buy.

In March, Chief Executive John Riston said that Ahold's strong performance in the U.S was mainly the result of the rebranding of its Stop & Shop and Landover grocery chains and the completion of its two-year "Value Improvement Program", in which Ahold lowered prices at its U.S. stores and cut costs across the group.

KBC Securities analyst Pascale Weber said Ahold's solid performance proves that this program continues to bear fruit, given that inflation in the U.S. has fallen over the past months. Weber rates Ahold at accumulate.

At Ahold's Albert Heijn unit in the Netherlands, sales were up 12.3% to EUR3 billion, partly due to the conversion of former Schuitema stores it acquired from CVC Capital Partners Ltd. Sales at the Albert/Hypernova chain in the Czech Republic and Slovakia dropped 3.9% to EUR491 million.

Company Web site: www.ahold.com

-By Maarten van Tartwijk; Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]