Halfords has backed its full-year profit guidance despite third quarter sales falling short of its expectations.
The motoring retailer blamed “mild winter weather” for sales in December that were “much weaker than expected”.
It said customers were “balancing difficult spending decisions in the run up to Christmas”, which led to like-for-like sales edging up 2% in the 13 weeks to 29 December.
Halfords noted that a “strong” performance in October and November helped to offset the “weaker spend in discretionary areas” in the month of Christmas.
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However, it said it continues to expect pre-tax profit to fall within the range of £48m to £53m.
The retailer said: “Whilst Q3 sales were below expectations, a strong start to Q4 trading, further cost action and resilient areas such as B2B performing well, mean that we are confident in the Q4 outlook.”
Halfords chief executive Graham Stapleton said: “In what remains a very challenging time for our customers, we are pleased to have delivered a resilient performance in Q3.
“Against the current backdrop, our continued strategic shift towards needs-based and motoring service-related revenues has never been more relevant.
“However, we are still seeing drivers delay essential maintenance and there is a worrying increase in potentially unsafe vehicles on the road.
“We are continuing to grow share across all of our markets and are confident that the business is very well-placed to drive significant profit growth once those markets recover.
“Trading in Q4 has begun strongly and we remain focused on everything that we can control, with a number of initiatives underway to achieve further efficiencies within the business, as well as investing in areas where we see real opportunities for future growth.”
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