// Halfords reports a 49.8% increase in pre-tax profits to £96.6 million for the year
// The business has forecast lower profits for 2023 as reduced demand and cost inflation hurt its performance
Halfords has seen a jump in profits as the retailer was buoyed by continued growth in its motoring and autocentres businesses.
Despite this, the business has downgraded its profit expectations for the full year.
The London-listed company said it expects underlying profit before tax in the year to the end of March 2023 will be within the range of £65m to £75m but acknowledged the uncertainty that this year is likely to bring.
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The retailer reported a 49.8% rise in pre-tax profits to £96.6m for the year to April 1, compared with the previous year.
It added that this also represented a 325% rise on the £22.7m profit it posted in the 2019-20 financial year, before the full impact of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, total revenues increased by almost a fifth to £1.37 billion compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Retail motoring sales grew by 6.5%, while its cycling business saw sales up 2.7% against two year ago but tumbled significantly lower against last year after a cycling boom during the pandemic.
Halfords chief executive Graham Stapleton said: “The strength and resilience of this performance is a great illustration of Halfords’ transformation over the past two years,”
“Our strategic shift towards motoring services has delivered higher, more predictable and more sustainable returns, and our acquisitions of both National and Iverson Tyres during the year mean that we are now the UK’s largest motoring service provider. Motoring now represents over 70% of Halfords’ total revenue, and the fact that our products and services in this category tend to be needs-based rather than discretionary will help us to navigate our way through the well-documented macroeconomic uncertainty that we are currently seeing,” he added.
“While rising inflation and declining consumer confidence will naturally present short-term challenges for any customer-facing business like ours, we remain confident in Halfords’ long-term growth prospects due to our service-led strategy and the enduring strength of our brand, people, products and services,” Stapleton concluded.
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