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(Alliance News) - Halfords Group PLC on Thursday said its third-quarter revenue grew but progress was stifled by subdued market conditions in its cycling and tyre-focused units.
Shares were down 19% at 173.96 pence each on Thursday afternoon in London.
The motoring and cycling products retailer said revenue in the 13 weeks to December 30 jumped 22% on-year, 4.6% like-for-like. This reflects strong sales in Motoring and needs-based categories, but overall revenue were impacted by softer than expected cycling and tyre markets.
"Overall revenues were impacted by softer than expected cycling and tyre markets," it cautioned, however. "Macro-economic headwinds continue to impact the cycling and consumer tyre markets although we gained share across all our measured markets including Cycling, Motoring and Tyres."
Halfords reduced underlying pretax profit guidance to a range of GBP50 million to GBP60 million for financial 2024, from the lower end of its GBP65 million to GBP75 million range previously.
"Like many businesses, one of the biggest challenges we face is recruitment. Put simply, we can't get enough qualified technicians into our garages to meet demand. There are parallel issues in many other parts of the economy where large skills gaps are opening up," Chief Executive Graham Stapleton said.
Stapleton also called on the UK government to "consider a number of initiatives" to ease a skills shortage.
Looking ahead, Halfords said it remains confident in the longer-term outlook and believes the business is well positioned to capitalise on the "strong" platform it has built as market conditions improve.
By Xindi Wei, Alliance News reporter
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