Autocentre offering drives growth at Halfords
Halfords has revealed revenue growth of almost 14% against 2020 figures in its Q3 trading update.
Following “exceptional” autocentre performance, like-for-like sales increased by a third over the past two years and total sales growth across the division was up 90.2%. The company says this has been driven by an MOT peak in Q3, its investment in its digital platform and its acquired businesses.
The £62m acquisition of Axle Group occurred in December and Halfords says this has secured its position as the UK’s largest vehicle service, maintenance and repair business.
The increasingly popular e-bikes grew more than 100% whilst children’s bikes sales started well but softened later in the period due to unexpected freight delays and the impacts of Omicron.
Halford’s says its retail sales were up 5.6% LFL, with a strong performance during October and November, however as the Omicron variant grew the store saw lower footfall and customer caution.
Graham Stapleton, CEO of Halfords said: “These results demonstrate the strength of our motoring services offer, and the outstanding performance from our Autocentres business confirms the rationale behind our recent acquisitions. With the recent addition of National to the group, motoring will represent more than 70% of our revenue, and we expect to carry out 7.5 million motoring servicing jobs a year.
“We are working hard to continually increase our capacity, capabilities, and geographic reach in this area, making it easier and more convenient for customers to have a broader range of vehicles serviced than ever before at over 1,400 fixed or mobile motoring services locations.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to present a number of headwinds and put significant pressure on our colleagues, who have navigated their way through a variety of challenges and issues. It is their resilience, dedication, and expertise that have produced another good set of results, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of them.”
