Carpetright plc has announced an update on trading for the 11 weeks ending 11th October 2014.
In the UK, like-for-like sales increased by 7.0%, while total sales increased by 5.7%. During the period, six stores were opened and 10 closed, giving a net reduction of four – there are now 463 stores trading, of which 290 have now been modernised.
Wilf Walsh, chief executive, comments: “I am pleased to report that the group’s trading performance improved year-on-year during the second quarter. In the UK our continued focus on effective promotional activity has delivered solid sales growth throughout the period, with like-for-like growth broadly in line with the level experienced in the first quarter.
“Trading across our Rest of Europe business has continued to improve, with a further reduction in the rate of sales decline, arresting the very significant fall seen over the last 30 months, particularly in our Netherlands business. We expect this, along with an improvement in gross profit margin and a reduction in operating costs, will result in our businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium to be profitable for the first half of the financial year compared to the trading loss experienced in the prior year.
“Trading in the year to date remains in line with management's expectations and our view for the year as a whole remains unchanged.”
