Kesa reports strong demand for digital products

Electricals group Kesa today reported strong demand for multimedia and digital products over Christmas, despite sales growth slowing at flagship chain Comet.

Kesa said group sales were up 6.2% between November 1 and January 8, against the same period last year, after strong demand for flat screen televisions, MP3 digital music players and laptops, particularly at its stores in France.

But like-for-like sales at Comet rose by 2.1%, lower than the 3.3% growth earlier reported for the three months to the end of October.

Sales at the 249-strong UK chain weakened in the run-up to Christmas but then “significantly” improved, led by sales of multimedia and digital items.

Total sales rose by 3.8% and Comet managed to hold or improve profit margins in all its key categories.

Earlier this month, rival Dixons described the electricals trading environment as “challenging” but said strong demand for items such as digital cameras and plasma televisions helped sales.

Kesa, which has more than 600 outlets in seven European countries, said it expected the group would deliver full-year results in line with market expectations.

Analysts are expecting Kesa to post pre-tax profits of between £192m (€276.1m) and £197m (€283.3m) for the year to January 31, against £190.7m (€274.2m) in the previous year.

In France, electricals chain Darty recorded like-for-like sales growth of 7.2% and total sales growth of 9.2%.

Sofas-to-stereos division BUT saw “satisfactory” furniture sales but did not benefit from the growth in new technology as much as the other businesses.

Same-store sales at the chain were 0.1% lower and total sales fell by 2.9% as the group suffered from the delay of the start of the French sale season.

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.”