New York [US], January 18: Walgreens, the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States, is continuing to close stores as part of its turnaround plans, reported USA Today on Friday.
The thinning of Walgreens locations has been in the works. Walgreens said in October 2024 it planned to close about 1,200 underperforming stores across the United States as a strategy to offset declining profits resulting from low drug reimbursement rates and sluggish retail sales, according to the report.
The strategy made sense, because about 25 percent of Walgreens stores were "not currently contributing to our long-term strategy," Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. CEO Timothy Wentworth said in June 2024 during a call with investment analysts about the company's quarterly financials.
Those 1,200 stores will be closed over three years, with about 500 to be closed in the company's fiscal year 2025, which ends in August 2025, Walgreens said.
Source: Xinhua
