Dixons Carphone says UK spending holding up as pre-tax profits break £500m

CEO Sebastian James strikes bullish tone in retailer's preliminary results

The UK consumer environment is holding up, Dixons Carphone's chief executive said as he unveiled a buoyant set of numbers for the electricals retail giant.

The LSE-listed firm has not been without its challenges in recent times - its share price has fallen by 40 per cent in the last 18 months and earlier in June it announced it was pulling out of its US joint venture.

But CEO Sebastian James struck a bullish tone in the firm's preliminary results for the 12 months ending 29 April 2017, which showed pre-tax profits rising 10 per cent to a record £501m.

Statutory revenue hiked nine per cent to £10.58bn, with group like-for-like revenue clambering four per cent and UK like-for-like revenue rising four per cent to £6.55bn.

James said improvements Dixons Carphone has made to its business, including the "enormous" shift in customer satisfaction and price competitiveness it has achieved, leave it "well positioned to flourish in the years ahead".

"While the UK consumer environment seems to be holding up for us, there will undoubtedly continue to be changes in the way people buy all the products that we sell, from phones to washing machines," he said.

James' comments come despite pollster YouGov claiming this week that consumer confidence has slumped steeply since Theresa May's botched attempt to increase her mandate resulted in a hung parliament.

When it comes to electricals retail in Europe, only Germany-based Media-Saturn is larger than Dixons Carphone, with revenues of €21.9bn (£19.4bn).

Dixons Carphone, the product of a £3.8bn union between Dixons and Carphone Warehouse in 2014, also operates in the Nordics and Southern Europe and has 43,000 staff. But its international aspirations took a knock earlier this month when it was forced to sell its 50 per cent stake in a joint venture with US carrier Sprint "in light of the changing US mobile market landscape".

However, the social media-friendly James was quick to take to Twitter this morning to celebrate this morning's preliminary results, which sent its shares spiking by as much as three per cent.