Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
A set of “robust trading results” released today show that Dunelm Group drove pre-tax profit up 7.8% to £52.2m in the 26 weeks to December 31 2011.
The out-of-town specialist homewares retailer also increased revenues by 8.8% to £299.9m, with like-for-like sales up 1.1%. The same period in the year before saw a 1.2% decline.
Gross margin rose 10 basis points to 49.2%, and the company enjoyed operating profit growth of 7.1% to £51.8m.
Dunelm opened 11 new superstores during the period, and a further four sites are committed for launch this financial year. It said that half of its superstores now were either new or had been refitted within the last three years.
It said it was also seeing ongoing strong growth in multi-channel sales, driven by launch of its Reserve & Collect.
CEO Nick Wharton said: “Dunelm has achieved robust trading results in a very demanding retail environment, and has continued to gain market share on a like-for-like basis. We have also made significant progress on our longer-term development plan, not only delivering a very ambitious store opening programme over the last quarter, but also making significant improvements to our online offer.”
