In the midst of the Sainsbury’s takeover, Home Retail Group has announced that first quarter like-for-likes grew by 0.1% at Argos.
Total sales rose by 2.6% to £868m in the 12 weeks to 28 May. New sites added 2.5%, mainly due to new store openings in the previous financial year.
Ecommerce sales increased by 16% and represented a significant 49% of total Argos sales, up from 44% year-on-year. Further, mobile sales went up by 17% which accounted for 29% of total Argos revenue.
Sales of electrical and non-electrical goods continued to rise. An increase in the expenditure of TVs, mobiles, computers and tablets was particularly due to a decline in sales of white goods.
“I am pleased with our performance in the first quarter. Argos delivered good total sales growth together with positive like-for-like growth, representing its strongest sales growth performance in eight quarters. This was achieved against the challenging backdrop of constrained seasonal product sales due to poor weather, on top of a deflationary pricing environment” said John Walden, Chief Executive of Home Retail Group.
“Given the natural distraction that a transaction such as this can be for our colleagues, on top of the recent sale of Homebase, I am particularly pleased with our performance in the quarter.”
Walden added that Sainsbury’s’ acquisition of Home Retail Group is on track to complete in the third quarter of the calendar year.
