Dixons Carphone profits plummet 24% despite sales boost

Dixons Carphone’s profits have dropped by 24% in a year despite seeing a 3% increase in sales.

In the 12-month period ending 28 April 2018, group profit before tax contracted from £500m to £382m, impacted by a negative £87m year-on-year loss from “revaluations and insurance contract terms”.

However like-for-like revenue growth in the group was 4%, attributed to a strong performance in Greece and the Nordic region. In the UK, electricals also delivered 3% like-for-like growth whilst mobile growth remained flat, despite a 3% like-for-like decline in the first half.

Overall total revenue for the period equalled £10.5bn, and the retailer said it also anticipates group profit before tax for 2018/19 to be around £300m.

Group chief executive Alex Baldock said he is confident in the company’s long term prospects, but admitted there is “plenty of work to do”.

He said: “We’re number one, maintaining or growing share in each of our markets, with people and scale multichannel capabilities no competitor can rival. We can make more of these strengths, by bringing clear long-term direction that sharpens our focus on our core, and that better joins up both our offer to customers and our business behind the scenes.

“There’s nothing here that can’t be done, and we expect top and bottom-line benefit of doing it. Our new leadership team is working at pace to set that direction, and we’ve taken action already to invest more in our colleagues and the customer experience, as well as to improve our performance in the UK.”

A week ago, the company admitted to a customer data breach in which hackers gained access to 5.9 million payment cards and 1.2 million personal data records.