Sebs Statement17 Dec 2014 07:22
Sebastian James, Group Chief Executive, said:
"It is clearly a symbolic moment in the history of our great new shared enterprise to be reporting our first half year results. And they are, I am pleased to say, encouraging. Overall sales in the period have grown by 5% on a like-for-like basis and profit before tax has grown by 30%. Best of all, customer satisfaction continues to show good year-on-year progress across the business.
We have seen a barnstorming performance from our UK & Ireland division with like-for-like sales growth of 6% in the first half and 11% in Q2. This has been driven by continued improvements in price and service, competitive changes, technology launches and some recovery in the economy. We have also seen a good performance from our Nordic business where the competitive environment seems - possibly temporarily - to have calmed just a shade. Our Greek business has also had a good half and seems to be benefiting from some market recovery. Life has been tougher for our smaller European phone businesses who are strategically less able to be robust in the face of market changes and we are in the midst of restructuring and reviewing these operations. We remain excited about the long-term potential of our Connected World Services business on which we report separately today. This business continues to show promise with third party deployment of honeyBee and a new contract recently signed with BT.
The integration of our business seems to be going better than I dared hope, and our integrated stores are trading very well which augurs well for the future. There is still much, much more to do, but I have been struck by the willingness of people at all levels and from all parts of the business to roll up their sleeves and get on with it. I also feel, every day, how lucky we are to have such a smart and committed team. I would like to use this opportunity to thank them for their hard work.
All in all, then, this has been a very good half year but there is a lot more of the year to go and a crucial Christmas to come, against a backdrop of big changes in how and when customers do their Christmas shopping. Black Friday was an extraordinary - and fun - day but we are all acutely aware that there is no room for complacency. Ahead of this all-important peak period we remain comfortable with market expectations for this year; at the same time we know that we will need to keep our foot on the gas if we are to achieve our ambitious longer-term goals."
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