SUPERTARGET PLANS 32 NEW STORES IN 2003

MINNEAPOLIS -- Target Corp. here said new SuperTarget locations will account for 30% of net square-footage growth this year, encompassing 32 of the company's 94 new store openings.

erTargets in each of the next 10 years. Target currently operates 94 SuperTargets.

Greg Steinhafel, president of the company's Target Stores division, which includes the SuperTargets, said the company "was pleased with the performance of SuperTarget" during 2002. "We had a very good year, with nice progress in topline sales growth and slight margin expansion, and we managed our [store] expansion better than we have in the past."

He said same-store sales at SuperTarget "were very close to what we achieved at the discount stores," where comps grew 2.2% for the year and fell 1.1% for the fourth quarter.

Steinhafel made his remarks during a conference call reviewing Target's financial results for the year and fourth quarter ended Feb. 1, which showed overall sales up 10.3% to $43.9 billion for the year and 6.4% to $14.1 billion for the quarter, with overall comps up 1.1% for the year and down 2.2% for the quarter. Net income climbed 20.9% to $1.7 billion for the year and 4.4% to $688 million for the quarter.

He said Target has "aggressively expanded" its Market Pantry and Archer Farms lines into new categories and items, "and we're rolling out our top performers [among those items] to all Target [discount] stores."