Kingfisher HY profits improve despite weak sales

B&Q owner Kingfisher has revealed that its statutory pre-tax profits rose 2.3% to £324m for the six months ended 31 July 2024, up from £317m in the same period last year.

The performance comes despite the fact the company’s sales fell 1.8% to £6.8bn, down from £6.9bn.

Like-for-like sales in the UK and Ireland fell 0.2% which Kingfisher described as “resilient despite weather impacted seasonal sales”.

The company stated it had seen a recovery in seasonal sales since early July but ‘big-ticket’ sales remained weak, with like-for-likes down 6.8%.

As a result of this the company has slightly increased its adjusted PBT guidance from between £490m-£550m up to between £510m-£550m.

CEO Thierry Garnier said: “Trading overall in the first half was in line with our expectations. This was underpinned by customers continuing to repair, maintain and renovate their existing homes, driving resilient volume trends in our core product categories.

“As expected, demand for ‘big-ticket’ categories has remained weak, in line with the broader market, while seasonal category sales trends have improved since early July. Against this backdrop we maintained a strong focus on effectively managing our costs and inventory.”

He added: “Our UK and Ireland banners continued to gain market share, supported by strong e-commerce sales and our progress in addressing trade customer needs. Screwfix delivered positive LFL sales and TradePoint achieved strong LFL sales growth of 7.1%, now representing 22% of B&Q’s sales. Sales in France were broadly in line with the market, reflecting the soft consumer backdrop.

“Notwithstanding this, we are making rapid progress with our actions to simplify the French organisation and improve the performance and profitability of Castorama France over the medium term. In Poland, we gained market share and our sales trend was supported by an improved consumer environment.”