Kesa hit by poor Christmas sales
Electricals retailer Kesa saw like-for-like sales fall by 1.3% in the quarter to 8 January while gross profit margin declined 0.9%.
Sales at its Comet business fell 14.5% as trading remained “challenging” with a poor Boxing Day to the New Year period off-setting an improved pre-Christmas. Kesa confirmed that the sale of Comet was due to complete on 3 February.
Like-for-like revenue at group’s Darty brand dropped 4.7% although Kesa said the business had continued to out-perform despite a weaker than expected market.
The group continued to grow its online sales which were up 18% in the period.
Chief Executive Thierry Falque-Pierrotin said: “Against ongoing subdued consumer confidence, we are demonstrating the strength of our concept and our cross channel strategy, outperforming our markets in our continuing businesses and delivering 18pc growth in web-generated sales, which now account for over 10pc of product sales.
“We will keep on building on the strength of our market leading cross channel offer whilst adjusting our cost to serve, in market conditions which we expect to remain challenging.”
