New technology ranges spark Kesa growth
Sales up across Christmas period
Sales of new technology products such as plasma TVs and digital music players drove healthy sales growth at electricals group Kesa across Christmas.
From November 1 to January 8, group sales grew by 6.2 per cent, and 6.1 per cent in local currency, with all Kesa electrical chains seeing “particularly strong” growth in sales of multimedia and digital products.
The French Darty chain, with total sales up 9.2 per cent and like-for-likes up 7.2 per cent, had a strong December, with growing sales of flat screen TVs, MP3s and laptops. Weaker sales of traditional analogue products and white goods had a “small negative” impact on margin.
In the UK, Comet saw the late rush reported elsewhere, with sales continuing to weaken up to Christmas and then significantly improving, also led by sales of multimedia and digital products. Kesa said Comet managed to hold or improve product margin in all its key categories. Total sales grew by 3.8 per cent and with like-for-likes up 2.1 per cent.
Back in France, furniture and electricals chain BUT saw total sales fall 0.2 per cent with like-for-likes down 2.9 per cent. Kesa said that while furniture sales were satisfactory BUT “has not benefited from the sales growth in new technologies to the same extent as our electrical businesses”.
The group’s other businesses, Vanden Borre, BCC and Datart, saw total sales grow 15.7 per cent with like-for-like growth of 6.2 per cent.
[img r]darty.jpg[/img]Kesa chief executive Jean-Noel Labroue said: “We are satisfied with the performances of our electrical businesses which all benefited from the growth in sales of multimedia and digital products.
“We continue to manage the impact of the resultant mix effect through our on-going margin management and cost control and we anticipate that overall the group will deliver results for the full year in line with current market expectations.”
