Portmeirion H1 sales grow more than a third

Homewares manufacturer Portmeirion Group said on Wednesday that first-half sales had grown approximately 34% year-on-year.

Portmeirion now expects first-half sales of roughly £43.0m after seeing sales growth across its three biggest geographical markets - the UK, USA and South Korea.

The AIM-listed firm also stated it had continued to see "strong sales growth" in online channels in its major markets.

Against its pre-Covid-19 performance in 2019, like-for-like sales at a constant currency were up by 6%, excluding the benefit of Nambé acquired in July 2019 and the remaining 50% of the issued share capital of Portmeirion Canada acquired in August 2020.

Chief executive Mike Raybould said: "We have continued to trade strongly in May and June and it is particularly pleasing to see that we are achieving like-for-like sales growth over pre-Covid-19 trading levels, despite continuing disruption in our markets due to the UK's lockdown in Q1 2021 and ongoing Covid-19 related global shipping and supply chain delays.

"We have a strong global order book going into our important second-half trading period. Whilst we remain cognisant of the ongoing supply chain-related challenges, we remain confident of the trading outlook for the rest of FY21."

As of 1255 BST, Portmeirion shares were down 0.30% at 655.0p.