"2006 was certainly an outstanding year for CVS," Tom Ryan,chairman, president, and CEO of CVS says in a conference callannouncing the quarterly and year-end results. "We fired on allcylinders, delivering sales, margin, earnings, and free cash flowahead of our plan."

The firm, which opened 147 new stores during the year, sawincome rise to $417.2 million, or 49 cents a share, during thequarter, up 2.7% from a year earlier when income was $406.4million, or 48 cents a share. Overall quarterly sales increased 24%to a record $12.1 billion, aided by the June acquisition of Sav-Onand Osco stores from Albertson's Inc. and the sales turnaround atEckerd stores acquired in 2004.

At comparative stores, sales for the 13-week period ended Dec.31, 2005 were up 8.7%, while pharmacy sales rose 10.2% andfront-end sales increased 5.5%. Those figures exclude the recentSav-on and Osco acquisitions, the company says.