Member Article

Sales gains for Argos and Homebase owners

Home Retail Group, the company behind the Argos and Homebase brands, have reported sales increases across both businesses.

Like-for-like sales in the 18 weeks to January 4 for Argos increased 3.8%, while Homebase saw a like-for-like rise of 4.7%.

At Argos, growth in tablets, video gaming and white goods fuelled the successes, while poorer sales of audio equipment and cameras had a downward impact.

Online sales accounted for nearly half of sale (46%) and mobile ecommerce grew 75% for the firm.

Total Argos sales for the period grew by 3.6% to £1,808 million.

Across the Homebase business, total sales grew to £464 million, although a number of store closures meant net sales decreased 2.4%.

Home Retail Group said the Homebase sales were driven by big ticket items.

Terry Duddy, chief executive of Home Retail Group, commented:“We are pleased that both Argos and Homebase have delivered another period of good trading performance despite a challenging consumer environment.

“In its peak trading period Argos has continued to grow internet sales, which now represent nearly half of total Argos sales. This growth was supported by a strong performance in mobile commerce sales which represented 20% of total Argos sales in the period.

“This gives further reinforcement to our plan for Argos to become a digital retail leader.

“As a result of the trading performance, we now expect to achieve full year Group benchmark profits towards the top end of the current range of market expectations of £90 million to £109 million. We remain on track to deliver the investment plans in both businesses.”

Alongside the report on trading the company announced its new chief executive in current managing director John Walden.

Walden has previously worked at US retailers BestBuy and Sears.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .