(Alliance News) - Halfords Group PLC on Thursday backed its full-year profit outlook despite a weaker third quarter performance.
The Worcestershire-based motoring and cycling products retailer said revenue in the three months to
December 29 grew 1.6% from a year ago, and by 2.0% on a like-for-like basis.
This consisted of revenue growth of 4.1% for its Autocentres business, and a 0.7% uptick in Motoring. However, Retail revenue dipped 0.1%, while Cycling dropped 1.2%. This was driven by "weaker spend in discretionary areas," Halfords said.
The firm added that whilst October and November sales were strong, sales in December were "much weaker", driven by a "combination of mild and wet weather impacting demand for winter products and footfall into stores, and customers balancing difficult spending decisions in the lead up to Christmas."
Despite the challenging environment, Halfords affirmed it continues to deliver revenue growth.
Looking ahead, the retailer said it expects pretax profit to fall in line with its previously stated target of between GBP48 million and GBP53 million for the year ending March 31. In financial 2023, the firm posted pretax profit of GBP43.5 million.
Chief Executive Officer Graham Stapleton said: "We are continuing to grow share across all of our markets and are confident that the business is very well-placed to drive significant profit growth once those markets recover. Trading in Q4 has begun strongly and we remain focused on everything that we can control, with a number of initiatives underway to achieve further efficiencies within the business, as well as investing in areas where we see real opportunities for future growth."
Shares in Halfords fell 2.3% to 170.00 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
By Sabrina Penty, Alliance News reporter
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Halfords (HFD)