Wesfarmers Ltd., Australia's second largest retailer, posted a good profit in the first six months of the year and completely beats the analyst estimates. The owner of Coles supermarkets released its first half results today.

The company reported a net profit of $879 million for the first half ended December 31, increasing by around 1% while in the same period previous fiscal the company posted a net income of $871 million. The market expectations for the first half net profit were of about $733 million.

In the first half, the diversified Group posted revenue of A$26.53 billion, comparing to the same period last fiscal revenue of A$26.36 billion. The retailer posted EBIT of A$1.54 billion in the period decreasing by 10.9% as in the previous first half it was reported A$1.73 billion.

Wesfarmers' Coles supermarket business reported revenue of A$15.16 billion, compared to $14.62 billion for the first half ended December 2008. The supermarket posted impressive earnings before interest, tax and corporate overheads of A$486 million in the first half of FY 2009-10, while it was posted A$431 million in the same period last year.

Though Wesfarmers posted a good half year, yet the company remains cautious about the outlook for the full year. The company said that its retail division could see some sales declines in the second half of the year.