Halfords has revealed increased sales and profits amid a boost from stronger bike sales over the past half-year.<\/p>\n
Bosses said the business was buoyed by a \u201crecovery\u201d in the cycling market, warm summer weather and \u201cfantastic\u201d sales of children\u2019s bikes.<\/p>\n
Sales in the cycling business rose by 9% for the half-year to September 26, compared with a year earlier, as a result.<\/p>\n
It helped drive a 3.3% increase in total revenues to \u00a3893.3 million for the half-year.<\/p>\n
Sales in the cycling business helped drive a 3.3% increase in total revenues (Aaron Chown\/PA) <\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the group saw like-for-like motoring revenues rise by 1.1%, while its autocentres business saw like-for-like growth of 4.3%.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Henry Birch, who was appointed chief executive of the company earlier this year, told the Press Association that pre-Budget speculation was \u201cunhelpful\u201d for consumers but that the business was in a good position following Wednesday\u2019s Budget.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cHaving assessed the Budget, we are still really confident heading forwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn business rates, it looks like we could see decreases for some retail sites and increases for some autocentres, but it\u2019s broadly similar net-net.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halfords said it was making \u201cgood progress\u201d with its rollout of \u201cfusion\u201d garages, which link the group\u2019s autocentres and motoring retail services.<\/p>\n
It said it had now launched 79 sites in this model as part of an expansion target of 150 sites, highlighting improved profitability at the locations.<\/p>\n
Mr Birch added: \u201cLooking ahead, there are significant opportunities for us to create further value through improvements in our technology and data capability, which are key areas of focus for us as we plan for the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the operating environment remains unpredictable, our combination of needs-based products and services, as well as market-leading positions in both motoring and cycling, give us the confidence that we will continue to grow our business in line with our plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garry White, chief investment commentator at Charles Stanley, said: \u201cHalfords is keeping its wheels turning, but the road ahead looks bumpy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe motoring services and cycling retailer delivered steady like-for-like growth at the interim stage and reaffirmed full-year guidance, helped by cost savings and its push into services.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet rising labour costs and a fragile consumer backdrop may mean it will be challenging to keep margins in gear in the second half of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halfords has revealed increased sales and profits amid a boost from stronger bike sales over the past half-year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,176769,176770,85,176771],"class_list":{"0":"post-312003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-halfords","12":"tag-increased-sales","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-warm-summer-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}