Pets at Home enjoyed a year of rising profits, catalysed by services for pet owners.
The 53 weeks to March 31 saw total sales rise 6.7% to £793m. Overall like for like sales jumped 2.1%, with the chain‘s services division in particular enjoying a like-for-like increase of 10%.
The year also saw several new concept stores trialled, such as convenience-concept chain ‘Whiskers N paws‘ and ‘Barkers‘, a store specifically for dog owners.
CEO Ian Kellett claimed it was “another year of good progress”, but warned that future profits would be impacted by the introduction of the national living wage, as well as the weakening value of sterling.
“Over the medium to longer term we believe these challenges will be outweighed by the support from our growing services business, which is still maturing,” said Kellett, who took over from former CEO Nick Wood in March.
“The pet market has proved over time to be more resilient than general retail, so whilst consumer confidence may be fragile, we believe our drive to become more specialist and most loved by customers will deliver further progress.”
For the first quarter of the new year, Pets at Home claimed trading was currently “in line with our expectations.”
