Dixons Carphone reports 30 profit boost

Dixons Carphone has announced a sizeable increase in underlying profit in its half-year results for the UK and Ireland.

The newly merged store said that it has enjoyed "barnstorming performance" over the six months to November resulting in underlying profit before tax growing 30 per cent to £78 million. Group like-for-like revenue was up by five per cent during the same period. Market share gains were also made across the company's electrical and mobile businesses in the UK, Ireland, Greece and Nordic countries.

Following the publication of its half year results, Dixons Carphone shares opened on Wednesday (December 17th) 3.49 per cent up at 441.60. It highlights a strong performance for a company that was only formed in August 2014, through a merger of Dixons Retail and the Carphone Warehouse Group.

The "barnstorming performance" of the company comes after it recorded a year-on-year revenues fall just a month after its merger. At the time Dixons Retail saw a one per cent drop, while Carphone Warehouse declined by 17 per cent but officials remained positive about the early days of the organisation.

It came as the group as set to float on the FTSE 100 and since then it has performed much better and this has been reflected in the half-year results. While the UK and Ireland has enjoyed some positive figures, the writing down the value of assets in the Netherlands and Germany has resulted in a £20 million loss.

Sebastian James, chief executive of the merged company, said: "We have seen a barnstorming performance from our UK and Ireland division. This has been driven by continued improvements in price and service, competitive changes, technology launches and some recovery in the economy."

Dixons Carphone added that it would be scaling back its European operations with around 50 stores to close in the Netherlands along with retail and wholesale operations in Germany.

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