According to Electricite de France (EDF), the reduced consumption in Europe triggered an unusual decline in wholesale prices during Q1 2007. In addition, the company’s sales during this period included a negative scope effect of E478 million, mainly due to disposals in Latin America in 2006.
Nevertheless, EDF said that, excluding consolidation scope and exchange rate effects, Q1 2007 sales recorded organic growth of 1.8%, against a particularly high base in Q1 2006 due to the cold weather in Europe and specifically in France.
Reduced demand due to warm weather in the utility’s domestic market led to sales of E9.8 billion in Q1 2007, which was a minimal increase of just 0.7% over Q1 2006. This also represented organic sales growth of 0.7%. The group generated 56.3% of its sales in France.
The utility performed more successfully in the rest of Europe, with sales in the region, excluding France, up 3.9% to E7.3 million. This was driven by particularly strong sales growth from the company’s UK arm, EDF Energy, which saw sales up 15.1% to E2.6 billion.
EDF put its UK performance down to the growth of the group’s customer portfolio, particularly for natural gas, which offset lower electricity sales to residential customers in the region. Organic sales growth in the UK was 12.9%.
Nevertheless, EDF’s sales in Italy were down 22.8% to E1.2 billion. In addition, the utility’s sales in the rest of the world were down 60.9%, primarily due to EDF’s divestiture of Brazilian company Light. The company’s sales outside of Europe stood at E311 million during Q1 2007m which represented organic growth of 1.4%.
