9th Sep 2014 06:25
LONDON (Alliance News) - Recently merged Dixons Carphone PLC Tuesday said like-for-like sales were up across the Dixons Retail business in the fiscal first quarter, but were down 6% in the Carphone Warehouse business due to difficult market conditions in Spain and a particularly strong performance across the business a year earlier.
In a short trading update, the company said like-for-like sales at the Dixons Retail business were up 4% in the UK and Ireland in the three months to August 2, up 1% in the Nordic region, and up 6% in Greece, which the company called encouraging.
However, like-for-like sales were down 6%, as the company had predicted, in the Carphone Warehouse business, coming up against a comparative period when like-for-like sales had risen 13% on the previous year due to heavy promotional activity.
"The integration is going well with seven departments now serving both parts of the business in an integrated way and, although it is early days, our 11 stores-in-store are performing ahead of the business case that we set out in our merger announcement," Dixons Carphone Chief Executive Sebastian James said in the statement.
The company, which will enter the FTSE 100 on September 22, said its Dixons Retail business had got a boost in the UK and Ireland from the football World Cup, but it is also seeing "some consumer recovery", and was helping sales by offering things like free warranties on some products.
"As expected, our mobile business has been slower in the first quarter than last year, which saw an exceptional period of promotional activity. We have, however, seen postpay market share gains, improved postpay mix and higher (average revenue per user) from 4G, all of which have been helpful in offsetting this," James said.
The CEO admitted that in southern Europe, Spain and Portugal remain tough, while its Greek business had an "excellent" quarter and developed "a number of smart ideas that we will look to deploy more widely". He didn't detail the ideas.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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