JD Sports activities has revealed weaker like-for-like gross sales and earnings over the previous half-year within the face of “strained client funds”.
The drop was partly linked to a fall in gross sales within the UK, the place it was additionally impacted by plenty of retailer closures, leaving the group with 13 fewer UK shops by August.
Boss Regis Schultz advised buyers that he’s “cautious” about buying and selling within the second half of the monetary yr.
It got here as the corporate reported that group like-for-like gross sales dropped by 2.5% to £5.94 billion over the 26 weeks to August 2. However, natural gross sales had been up 2.7% and whole gross sales grew by 18% after it was buoyed by offers to purchase the Hibbert and Courir manufacturers.
The corporate reported that like-for-like gross sales dropped by 3.8% in its key North America arm and had been down 3.3% within the UK.
JD Sports activities mentioned its weaker UK commerce was “affected by robust prior-year comparatives because of the Euro 2024 soccer event”. It mentioned this significantly knocked reproduction soccer shirt gross sales over the interval.
JD Sports activities additionally reported that adjusted pre-tax earnings dropped by 13.5% to £351 million over the half-year.
The group mentioned that is in step with steerage and means it’s nonetheless on observe to satisfy its targets for the yr.
Its UK enterprise noticed working earnings earlier than adjusting gadgets and lease curiosity fall 6.2% as a result of larger labour prices, property prices and investments in expertise and cyber resilience.
Mr Schultz, Chief Government of JD Sports activities, mentioned: “We delivered natural gross sales progress of two.7% in H1, in what stays a tricky buying and selling surroundings.
“This demonstrates the resilience of our enterprise, underpinned by our agile multi-brand mannequin, broad geographic attain and unmatched reference to prospects.
“In an surroundings of strained client funds and evolving model product cycles, working and monetary self-discipline stays a core focus for JD, and we’re controlling our prices and money effectively.
“While we stay cautious on the buying and selling surroundings for the second half, we anticipate restricted influence from US tariffs this monetary yr, and our full-year revenue earlier than tax and adjusting gadgets to be in step with present market expectations.”
