This marked a 30% increase from 2009 levels, even though netsalesrevenues decreased by 5% overall for the entire European region (including Russia and Turkey) during the same period.
The increase in revenues is primarily due to the same store sales growth partially offset by revenues associated with the net decrease of 50 stores compared to last year.
The company said this improvement is principally due to higher auction commission revenues resulting from a 23 percent increase in net auction sales, partially offset by a decline in auction commission margin from 17.2 percent to 16.4 percent, attributable to the sales mix.