Rainham, England, December 14-- Carpetright PLC, the carpet and floor coverings retailer, reported a 16.5% increase in underlying interim profit and said its UK business is well positioned to continue outperforming the market.
For the six months to Oct 30 the group -- 28 pct owned by the family of Lord Harris of Peckham, its founder, chairman and chief executive -- made a profit before goodwill amortisation and exceptional items of 32.6 mln stg on turnover of 235.9 mln stg. Pretax profit was flat at 31.1 mln stg.
The UK/Ireland business, which trades from 371 stores and 39 concessions in Allders department stores, saw sales increase 8.3 pct to 203.3 mln stg.
The business saw growth across the whole range of floor coverings with a particularly strong performance from both roll stock carpet and vinyl ranges.
Like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of new space, were up 3.0%, while a further 2.9% of the growth came from the concessions in Allders.
Underlying operating profit rose 12.0% to 31.9 mln stg and market share increased to just over 26%.
The gross margin increased 0.9 percentage points, reflecting further buying scale, efficiency gains and controlled costs.
"Although the UK floor coverings market remains challenging the Carpetright business is well placed to continue outperforming the market and gain further market share," said Harris.
In June Carpetright detailed an aggressive expansion programme that will see the group trade from 450 standalone UK stores and up to 150 concessions within department stores by 2009.
A further five UK stores are slated to open before Boxing Day.
The retailer has also opened seven concessions in Debenhams department stores and will open more next year.
Carpetright's Benelux business, which trades from 89 outlets, saw underlying operating profit increase to 1.4 mln stg from 0.4 mln stg, on the back of a 3.2 pct increase in same store product sales in local currency.
The business also increased market share despite a "challenging" trading environment, particularly in the Netherlands.
A further 20-25 towns in Belgium and the Netherlands have been identified for store openings.
"While we expect the market to continue to be challenging in the short term, we believe the investment made in our Benelux business has created a solid platform for future growth," added Harris.
