Dixons Carphone has reported third-quarter growth for the fifth consecutive year.
In the 10 weeks to January 7 in the UK and Ireland, the retailer saw a six per cent increase in like-for-like revenue, and a four per cent increase on a year-on-year basis.
Dixons Carphone also said that it was on course for an anticipated headline pre-tax profit of between £475 million and £495m.
Group chief executive Sebastian James (pictured) said: “I am pleased to be reporting another good Christmas period of growth – our fifth consecutive year. At a time of significant political uncertainty around the world, it was heartening to see that customers were choosing to enjoy the benefits that new technologies could bring to their lives during this holiday season.
“This year, as a result of our scale in all of our markets, we were able to offer prices that were truly ground-breaking during both our Black Friday week and our annual Boxing Day week sales, while maintaining margins, and we believe that we have outperformed the market during the period. As a result, and despite the fact that there is quite a bit of the year to go, we anticipate a meaningful uplift in year-on-year profitability this year over last and confirm our outlook in line with market consensus at £475 million to £495m of headline profit before tax for the year ending April 29.
“It was interesting to see the shape of peak trading this year. Black Friday was our biggest ever across the group and in the UK we saw trading stretch further across the week as well.
“In all markets, it was a strong year online with significant growth, including white goods. Patchy availability of the larger, higher-margin phones and tablets made these categories tougher this year but, on the other hand, offers up opportunities for next year where we do not expect the same issues. Large-screen TV, in our view a bellwether for consumer sentiment, showed a solid performance over peak in all markets, which we were glad to see.”
