Parkson Retail Group, the mainland's largest department store operator, said the slowdown in business growth was not over, but it was already preparing for the recovery.
The announcement came as the retail unit of Malaysia's Lion Group posted a 24.43 per cent growth in full-year net profit yesterday.
Net income, which amounted to 841.14 million yuan (HK$954.02 million) for the year to December from 676 million yuan a year earlier, was basically in line with the mean estimate of 872.53 million yuan from 21 analysts Thomson Reuters polled.
But earnings growth still lags the 35.7 per cent growth it witnessed in the first half of last year and 46.7 per cent for the whole year of 2007.
Parkson, a bellwether for the health of the mainland's retail sector, issued a profit warning last month, citing macro economic headwinds that had dampened consumption sentiment.
'We believe that our business growth in the immediate term will be very challenging, but we remain cautiously optimistic about the medium to long-term prospect of the mainland economy and retail industry,' the company told the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.
