Currys has reported a hunch in Christmas gross sales, with the soccer World Cup even failing to bolster demand for TVs.
The electricals retailer mentioned the price of dwelling disaster meant conventional favourites had been out of favour as shoppers hunted power environment friendly home equipment as a substitute.
Like-for-like gross sales within the UK and Ireland fell 5% within the 10 weeks to 7 January in comparison with the identical interval in 2021/22.
Currys mentioned the decline partly mirrored excessive ranges of gross sales seen during the last two pandemic-hit years.
Chief govt Alex Baldock informed reporters: “It hasn’t been a bumper peak buying and selling season for know-how retail, for instance the computing and the TV markets had been in fairly a difficult area.
“By contrast we did well in (domestic) appliances and in mobile,” he mentioned, highlighting notably robust demand for power environment friendly home equipment.
He mentioned gross sales of air fryers had been up 500% year-on-year, whereas microwave gross sales had been up 30%.
Sales of warmth pump tumble dryers and power environment friendly washing machines had been additionally robust.
Currys saved its monetary steering for the complete yr – sustaining a minimize to the revenue outlook for the complete yr to April that was imposed final month after a loss-making first half.
That was blamed on weak gross sales in a heavily-discounted Nordics market.
The firm admitted the abroad enterprise had suffered an additional deterioration over the festive season, with gross sales 10% down.
Shares rose 8% in early offers, reflecting reduction that the revenue steering was unchanged.
Currys mentioned it nonetheless anticipated to ship 2022-23 adjusted revenue earlier than tax of between £100m-£125m – down from the £186m achieved in 2021-22.
Source: information.sky.com”