Dixons Carphone has increased its estimation of full year pre-tax profits to between £355m to £375m, after a 7% increase on its like-for-like trading over the Christmas period against last year.
Group chief executive Sebastian James described the trading period as ‘something of a rollercoaster’, but is pleased with the company’s performance against ‘fairly tough comparables’. He lauded the success of both Black Friday promotions and Boxing Day deals, which translated into growth in market share across the period.
He added: “There have been some market shifts as product lifecycles and ways of buying change: online has risen as a proportion, with excellent growth in both home delivery and click-and-collect. Prepay phone sales have continued to fall, replaced by postpay contracts to a large extent. We have seen a return to growth in laptops but tablet sales fell sharply as we saw less innovation in the category. We have seen excellent growth in ultra-high-definition TVs as people, rightly, trade into the newer technologies. Finally, white goods had a very good peak trading period across the board with particularly rapid growth in online.”
He also thanked the company’s staff for the manner in which they have facilitated the successful end to the year. He said: “I have been consistently impressed by the way in which our teams have kept the great engines of the business turning through what must be one of the biggest years of change in our history.”
