Home Retail Group delivers strong sales

Home Retail Group today announced the results for the short 8 week trading period, that has arisen as a result of the change in its financial year end.

Argos total sales for the period were up 6.8% (3% LFL), driven predominantly by continue strong growth in televisions and video games consoles. Whilst Homebase sales were up an encouraging 13.3% (9.9% LFL), which Home Group admitted was partly due to being up against the weakest comparatives from last year. However, strong performances were seen in the bigger ticket items and garden maintenance.

Home Retail Group CEO Terry Duddy said, This short trading period to the end of our new financial year-end has seen a performance ahead of our expectations. We now expect profits on a 52-week pro forma basis to be slightly above the current market consensus, driven principally by Argos. While we are pleased with the most recent performance and the likely outturn for the financial year just completed, we remain cautious on a retail environment that is still expected to be challenging”.