The discount supermarket chain, which has faced stiff competition from Lidl and Mercadona in Spain, its main market, saw net sales fall nearly 11 percent to 7.3 billion euros. The results were much worse than the expected four-million-euro loss expected by analysts surveyed by data provider Factset. After the announcement Dia's shares slumped 2.2 percent in morning trading in Madrid while the overall market was off 0.3 percent overall, before recovering to a loss of 0.7 percent. "2018 has been a turbulent year for Dia, probably its most difficult since the company was founded more than 40 years ago," the group said in a statement.
The discount supermarket chain, which has faced stiff competition from Lidl and Mercadona in Spain, its main market, saw net sales fall nearly 11 percent to 7.3 billion euros. The results were much worse than the expected four-million-euro loss expected by analysts surveyed by data provider Factset. After the announcement Dia's shares slumped 2.2 percent in morning trading in Madrid while the overall market was off 0.3 percent overall, before recovering to a loss of 0.7 percent. "2018 has been a turbulent year for Dia, probably its most difficult since the company was founded more than 40 years ago," the group said in a statement.