Pacific Sunwear same-store sales rise 4 percent in April

ANAHEIM, Calif.—Teen apparel retailer Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. said Thursday its April same-store sales rose 4 percent, below Wall Street's expectations.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, forecast a 5.6 percent increase in same-store sales.

Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, is a key indicator of retailer performance since it measures growth at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.

Total sales for the four weeks ended May 3 rose 5 percent to $73.8 million from $70.4 million in the same period last year.

For the first 13 weeks of fiscal 2008, same-store sales slipped 1 percent, while total sales fell less than 1 percent to $266.8 million.

Pacific Sunwear completed the sale of its Demo business in April. The company will report Demo as a discontinued operation in its quarterly reports beginning with the fiscal first quarter of 2008.

Pacific Sunwear said it expects to report a loss of between 17 cents and 18 cents per share in the first quarter. Analysts, on average, anticipate a loss of 7 cents per share.