16th Dec 2015 10:45
LONDON (Alliance News) - Electricals and mobile phone retailer Dixons Carphone PLC on Wednesday said its pretax profit rose in the first half thanks to higher revenue and solid like-for-like sales growth, as it added two notable names to its board and said Black Friday was the biggest trading day in its history.
Shares in the company were boosted by the results, up 2.4% to 488.30 pence to sit among the best performers in the FTSE 100 mid-morning.
The FTSE 100-listed electricals retailer, created by the merger of Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse last year, said its pro-forma headline pretax profit for the 26 weeks to the end of October was GBP121.0 million, up 23% year-on-year from the GBP98.0 million it made a year earlier. The headline result strips out costs from the merger.
Reported pretax profit for the half rose to GBP78.0 million from GBP71.0 million, despite the group booking more charges related to the integration of the two businesses.
Revenue for the group rose to GBP4.39 billion from GBP3.04 billion, helped by like-for-like revenue growth of 5.0% for the half, though this slowed to 3.0% in the second quarter. The group saw robust growth in the UK and Ireland in the half, though total revenue was held back slightly by weak currencies in the Nordic region, which offset market share gains the group made in the region.
In particular, the group said it had a strong Black Friday in November, with the day proving the company's biggest ever trading day, giving it a good lead going into the key Christmas period.
The group added its Connected World Services business, its service partnerships arm, has seen encouraging growth in the half and said its recently-launched service with US carrier Sprint was progressing well.
The company said it would pay an interim dividend of 3.25 pence per share, up 30% year-on-year.
"This has been a very good first half for Dixons Carphone. Against a broadly flat market overall and a very strong comparative period we have seen continued like-for-like growth driven by market share gains across all territories," said Sebastian James, the company's chief executive.
"A strong Black Friday was a great start to Christmas, and I will look forward to communicating again in January with a more complete view of the season and plans for the year ahead," James said.
He added the integration of the two companies remains on track and it expects to complete the move of the Carphone Warehouse depot to Newark in Nottinghamshire in the new year, the final major change which needs to take place.
"I think that, with nearly all the bigger changes done, we are now ready to settle into a more normal married life and to think about our business as a single Dixons Carphone entity," he said.
Dixons Carphone also said it has appointed Ian Livingston, the former chief executive of telecoms giant BT Group, as its deputy chairman with immediate effect. Livingston earlier had been chief financial officer of the former Dixons Group.
The company also appointed Tony DeNunzio, the former chief executive of the Asda/Wal-Mart supermarket business in the UK, as senior independent director.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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