Online sales boom fuels Dixons Christmas revenues

Dixons Carphone maintained full year guidance as it reported a sharp rise in electricals revenue over the Christmas period driven by people buying televisions and computers online during the coronavirus lockdown.

The company on Wednesday said like-for-like revenue from the electricals unit rose 11% in the 10 weeks to January 9, with UK and Ireland online sales soaring 121%.

However mobile phone total revenue plunged 40% as its Carphone Warehouse stores were closed under Covid restrictions and consumers continued to hold on to expensive handsets for longer, while switching between cheaper and more efficient sim-only deals.

Dixons said large screen televisions, smart tech, food preparation, health & beauty and all areas of computing & gaming had been its biggest sellers as more people were forced to work from home and schools

In the Nordics online sales also soared, up 97% compared to the same period last year, while in Greece they rocketed by 366%.

“At present there are enforced closures of large parts of our operations across the UK, Ireland and Denmark and there is no certainty on when these will end,” Dixons Carphone said.

“The business has proven that it can deliver a strong trading performance irrespective of these restrictions, and despite current store closures we expect to deliver full year profits in line with market expectations. All medium-term guidance remains as previously announced.”

“We’re winning online, where we’re the biggest and fastest-growing specialist technology retailer in all our markets."

In a separate statement, Dixons said it had appointed Tesco finance director Bruce Marsh as chief financial officer with effect from July 12.

Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter said: "While customers were forced to downscale their celebrations, they up-scaled their choice of gifts buying 75% more 65 inch TVs and 20% more expensive Dyson beauty products. As people were banned from having visitors for most of the period, demand for digital home assistants soared, with sales of 8,000 smart speakers a day."

"The closure of many gyms has clearly spurred people on to DIY fitness regimes with fitbits and apple air pods breaking records in terms of sales."

However, Streeter warned that Dixons' price guarantee promise was "likely to eat further into margins moving forward".

"They were already pretty thin, and without an alternative flight path, Dixons could end up in a margin tailspin with little room for manoeuvre."