At its preliminary results last week, the retailer – which notched up its 20th consecutive year of sales growth – revealed it had benefited across all categories from an upsurge in customer car maintenance and a resurgence in cycling.
Halfords will open its first store in Poland in autumn, following the success of three pilot shops in the Czech Republic. It is also considering launching in Slovakia and Hungary.
The retailer, which trades from 450 stores altogether, including 17 in the Republic of Ireland, said there is capacity for another 100 Halfords stores in the UK. It will open between 15 and 20 shops a year, split between its neighbourhood and larger store formats.
Halfords will also increase its Bikehut store count from six to a national pilot of 10 and launch a Bikehut web site this year.
Landsbanki analyst Charles Nichols said: “We confess, we are warming to the Halfords story.” He said the management had allayed concerns about the positive like-for-like effect of one-off products, such as sat-navs.
He added: “This highly disciplined management continues to fine-tune the business with an unusually intense category focus, which yields numerous new rabbits to pull out of the hat.”
Sales at the group – which has not had a chief executive since Ian McLeod resigned in February – climbed 7.2 per cent to£797.4 million in the year to March 28. Like-for-likes rose 4.3 per cent and pre-tax profits jumped 11.5 per cent to£90.2 million.
Acting joint managing director Nick Wharton said current trading was “broadly where expected”, with sales of leisure products “gaining momentum”.
Nichols said he is assuming like-for-likes are ahead 2.5 per cent in the present year, which he said is “well above the retail industry as a whole, where we expect significant like-for-like sales decline this year”.
Dresdner Kleinwort analyst Sanjay Vidyarthi said: “We like Halfords’ category-killer, market-leading positions, disciplined growth strategy and blend of defensive and growth product categories.”
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