Dixons Carphone (LON:DC) saw a better-than-expected Christmas quarter in 2016, with sales up by 4 percent.
The electronics retailer, which operates branches of Curry, PC World and Carphone Warehouse, saw strong performance in sales for the Christmas quarter beating initial analyst forecasts of 2.5 percent.
“We believe that we have outperformed the market during the period,” said Chief Executive Seb James.
“Generating a successful Christmas means starting planning in January, and the teams are already hard at work making sure that our next Christmas season will be even better,” James continued.
“I would like to thank my remarkable, hard-working and resilient colleagues for the time and effort that they have put in over this holiday period to achieve these results. I am very proud to be a part of this great company, as we look forward to another year of innovation and growth.” He added.
Specifically, the reporting revealed that like-for-like revenue in the UK and in Ireland was up by 6 percent in the 10 weeks to 7 January. Elsewhere in southern Europe, the company enjoyed a five percent increase in sales. Conversely, its Nordic operations saw a one per cent fall in profits for the same period. Online sales remained consistently strong across all its operations.
The company is currently Britain’s largest electronics and mobile phone retailer, following the merger of Dixons retail and Carphone Warehouse in August of 2014. Electronics retails have been however, particularly affected as a result of pound devaluation in the wake of the Brexit referendum, as a result of the high level of imported stock.
Despite the strong set of figures, the 4 percent rise is down from a 5 percent increase across the same period last year, as the pound weakness continues to affect revenues. Whilst this represented the company’s “fifth consecutive period of Christmas growth”, it has indicated that Brexit uncertainty will result in price increases. This follows similar measures implemented by tech giant Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), in the wake of sterling devaluation.
Shares in Dixons Carphone were down 3.06 percent in early morning trading, also of 9.50 AM (GMT).