Dixons Carphone PLC posts record growth for big TVs and gaming;
Revenues rose 11% in the electricals segment but mobile was down 40% after last year’s permanent store closures
(LON:DC.) said it saw a surge in electricals revenue but mobile phones sales tanked over the festive period, as it also announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer.
The retailer said it experienced the highest growth in sales of large-screen TVs, smart tech, food preparation, health & beauty and all areas of computing & gaming in the ten weeks to January 9, 2020.
READ: Dixons Carphone upgraded to ‘outperform’ by RBC as market neglects Nordics growth
This pushed the group’s electricals like-for-like revenue up 11%, while in the UK & Ireland it rose by 8% with online rocketing 121%.
The international segment saw sales rising 14%, with a 19% jump in the Nordics offsetting a 13% tumble in Greece caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions.
The group’s UK & Ireland Mobile segment tanked 40% but the FTSE 250 group said it was in line with plan following the standalone Carphone Warehouse store closures implemented last April.
The firm has been offering alternatives to physical stores, such as the 1-hour drive-thru Order & Collect and ShopLive 24/7 live video shopping.
In a separate announcement, Dixons announced the appointment of Bruce Marsh as its new chief financial officer to replace Jonny Mason, whose departure date has not been set yet.
Marsh has been finance director for Tesco’s () UK and Ireland segment since 2015, which he joined after senior roles at Kingfisher ().
He is not new to the electricals retailer, having held a number of senior finance roles at Dixons Retail between 1995 and 2008.
“The company says its price promise has also helped it gain market share, but guaranteeing products at the lowest common denominator is likely to eat further into margins moving forward. They were already pretty thin, and without an alternative flight path, Dixons could end up in a margin tailspin with little room for manoeuvre,” noted Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“Mobile is still a weak spot… people are tending to hang on to handsets for longer, leading more customers to choose less lucrative SIM-only deals The retailer clearly hopes to turn this around with an improvement product offering in the first quarter, but it’s going to be a tricky manoeuvre to pull off, given its competitors like AO.com have also entered the fray.”
Shares dipped 2% to 120.9p on Wednesday morning.
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