London, England, June 27, 2006--The laminate floor fad is well and truly over and as British households rekindle their love affair with carpet, the country's leading flooring store hopes to be their first port of call, according to the Guardian.
Carpetright is widening its range of rugs and carpets, stocking ever-softer options and preparing for the advent of reds, blues and greens as we tire of coffee, beige and pastels.
The 440-strong chain's laminate sales slumped by more than a third over the last year while carpet sales rose just over 4%, Carpetright said today, expressing guarded optimism about prospects.
Philip Harris, chairman and chief executive, said laminate was "too noisy, very difficult to lay and children fall over on it." He said customers were now looking for more texture.
He was speaking after the group unveiled a 7.8% annual fall in underlying pre-tax profit to £56.7m for the year to April 29. That was in line with analysts' forecasts and reflected a turnaround in the second half after profits dropped a third in the first on a subdued property market.
"There's no question at all that is driven by the housing movements," said Lord Harris, noting a 16.5% annual rise in underlying pre-tax profit in the second half as the housing market began to enjoy its latest resurgence.
"If we could see the housing market continue like it has for the last six months we would be reasonably happy," he said.
More spending on advertising and new stores helped boost Carpetright's UK and Ireland market share to 28% over the year.
The chain plans to launch 25 new stores by the end of this year, mainly in small towns, and has a target of a total of 550 eventually.
A hundred of those are likely to be concessions inside other stores such as House of Fraser, Land of Leather and Co-ops.
Carpetright is also covering families' floors from about 100 stores in Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. Underlying profit for those countries jumped by a fifth and the group is particularly optimistic about the prospects for Poland, where the market is predicted to grow by more than 40% over the next five years.
Shares in Carpetright, which have risen almost 40% over the last year, were up 8p at £12.38 in afternoon trading.
Christian Koefoed-Nielsen, a Panmure Gordon analyst, said the floors specialist was good value. "Carpetright offer a good combination of medium-term growth in the UK and Europe," he said.
