Electrical goods retailer Dixons Carphone, formed following a completed merger in August this year, has reported an underlying profit rise of 30% to £78m, in the six months to November.

In the first results since the £3.7bn merged entity was launched, which saw Carphone Warehouse and Dixons Retail join forces to become newly combined group Dixons Carphone, a strong 5% rise in same store sales has been reported. Shares rose more than 3% in early trading, to 442.50p.

Chief Executive Sebastian said:

“It is clearly a symbolic moment in the history of our great new shared enterprise to be reporting our first half year results. And they are, I am pleased to say, encouraging. Overall sales in the period have grown by 5% on a like-for-like basis and profit before tax has grown by 30%. Best of all, customer satisfaction continues to show good year-on-year progress across the business.”

He added:

“We have seen a barnstorming performance from our UK and Ireland division with like-for-like sales growth of 6% in the first half and 11% in the second quarter. This has been driven by continued improvements in price and service, competitive changes, technology launches and some recovery in the economy.”

The demise of rivals Phones4U and Comet this year have no doubt helped the electrical and telco conglomerate, which has benefited from strong sales of white goods and TVs.

An analyst at Investec commented:

“Maiden interims for DC were expected to be confusing given different accounting periods (6 months Dixons, 7 months for Carphone) but EBIT came in at £100m with PBT ahead of company-compiled consensus of £79m and £58m respectively. Greater focus in our view should be placed on Q2‘s excellent trading performance and the outlook for the core business, synergy potential and developments within Connected World Services.” Trading in the regions of the Netherlands and Germany has remained tough for Dixons Carphone, which meant a £20m loss was also posted, but the retailer will close down 50 stores in the Netherlands as well as its retail and wholesale operations in Germany, as a solution.