Electrical retailer sees revenue rise to £27.7m despite ‘challenging’ market conditions

Marks Electrical Group, the listed online electrical retailer, has seen its revenue increase by 13.7% to £27.7m after overcoming a “particularly challenging” market backdrop.

In a trading update this morning (11 August), Leicester-based Marks said it had grown its share of the major domestic appliances market to 2.1% thanks to the popularity of its vacuum cleaners, washers & dryers, air conditioning units and televisions.

Marks’ CEO Mark Smithson said the encouraging performance had come despite “strong competitive activity” in both pricing and marketing.

He said: “We’ve started the year well despite a very tough market backdrop with the Group’s sales for the first four months up 13.7% compared with the online MDA and CE markets being down over 20% in the first months of our FY23.

“We’ve seen strong competitive activity both in pricing and marketing, with heavy discounting of headline prices and higher cost per click marketing expenses. Despite this, we have maintained our tight control on inventory, cost management and disciplined capital allocation, ensuring we are in a healthy cash position and remaining focused on profitable market share gains.”

On the back of the announcement, the company says it will propose a dividend of 67p per share at its AGM later today.

Smithson added: “Our differentiated operating model, leading customer service and free next day delivery provides a unique offering that sets us apart from the competition. I’m proud of the performance our team has delivered in a very challenging market. Whilst the remainder of the year is difficult to predict, our focus on maintaining a market leading customer proposition and healthy cash flow provides us with the best platform to generate continued profitable market share growth.”