Dunelm has reported sales growth of +5% for the 26 weeks ended 31st December 2022, with total sales up +43% on H1 FY20 (pre-pandemic).
The retailer made significant market share gain in homewares and continued share gains in furniture, growing its active customer base by +7.5% YoY.
Dunlem delivered a gross margin of 51.1% and a PBT of £117.4m, down on the prior year as expected, reflecting the impact of sale timing and strong post-pandemic demand in the prior year, plus inflationary impacts.
It invested £17m in digitalisation, capability and capacity, launching some 10,000 new SKUs online during the period. Three new stores opened, including one relocation.
CEO Nick Wilkinson comments: “We are all learning to live in a new, complex and rapidly evolving economic reality. Recognising this, our focus has been on ensuring that we continue to offer outstanding value to our savvy customers through a proposition which is committed to quality, at the right price, across an expanding range of relevant products. We believe that this is why we have continued to grow our sales, customer numbers and market share.
“In this environment, agility, creativity and innovation are more important than ever and we have endeavoured to make every pound count, both for ourselves and for our customers, helping to mitigate the impact of inflation. While we do this, it is important that we also maintain our long-term thinking, invest for sustainable growth and continue to ensure we are in a position to seize the significant opportunities ahead of us.
“Much like during the pandemic, our customers, colleagues and the communities we operate in will remember how businesses behaved when times were tough, and we are confident that our approach of offering outstanding value and choice for all will enable us to – once again – emerge from this challenging period stronger than ever.”
Despite these successes, the retailer says that the consumer outlook remains unpredictable, and its expectations for PBT in FY23 remain unchanged.
