Convenience store chain FamilyMart Co. said Tuesday its group net profit for the year through February jumped 50.7 percent from the year before to 12.88 billion yen on strong sales and reduced extraordinary losses.

FamilyMart also reported a 15.4 percent increase in group pretax profit to 28.86 billion yen on revenue of 217.47 billion yen, up 11.2 percent. Consolidated operating profit grew 17.5 percent to 27.92 billion yen.

Japan's third-largest convenience store operator said aggressive new store openings in heavily trafficked locations such as hotels, office buildings, hospitals and universities helped boost sales performance.

Overall store sales of the FamilyMart group, covering 6,013 stores in Japan and 3,110 abroad, rose 5.8 percent to 1.15 trillion yen. Operating profit of the group's main convenience store business increased 11.6 percent to 32.31 billion yen.

FamilyMart said its merger in September with Kyushu-based Matsuhaya FamilyMart Co. improved profitability due to the integration of business operations and strategies.

Stores elsewhere in Asia contributed by logging a nearly 20-fold surge in operating profit to 1.31 billion yen.

FamilyMart trimmed its extraordinary loss to 6 billion yen from 9.1 billion yen as it more than halved losses related to fixed assets and store leases.

For the current year, FamilyMart predicts a group net profit of 13.7 billion yen, an increase of 6.4 percent, and a pretax profit of 30.6 billion yen, up 6 percent. Overall revenue is estimated at 229 billion yen, up 5.3 percent