DFS sales and profits drop against lockdown boom

The sofa specialist’s profit before tax plunged 70% to £22m over the 26-week period to December 26, compared with the previous year, while its sales dropped by 2% to £561m.

DFS said these results were an improvement on a two-year basis, with profits up 36% and sales up 15% against the same period in 2019.

The retailer said it had succeeded in building its business to be 15% bigger than it was pre-pandemic, including investing in new Sofology showrooms, revamping DFS stores and strengthening its online capabilities.

DFS has now grown its market share by 2% and has announced a new strategy to unlock future growth.

The strategy, named Pillars and Platforms is based on growing the three core businesses – DFS, Sofology and its homewares ranges – across four key platforms: sourcing and manufacturing, technology and data, people and culture, and logistics.

Chief executive Tim Stacey said: “We delivered a strong performance in the first half of the year, with market share gains and strong revenue growth on the pre-pandemic comparators.

“This was in spite of significant logistics and supply chain challenges, and once again I would like to thank all of our colleagues across the group for their hard work and resilience in achieving this result.

“Trading across H2 to date has started strongly, again emphasising the increased scale of the business and demonstrating the success of our approach to mitigating the impact of inflationary pressures on our profit expectations.

“Looking forward, whilst the macro-economic environment remains uncertain, we believe that our scale, brand strength and integrated retail strategy will continue to drive market share gains ahead of the competition.  

“We will continue to invest in our digital platforms, our showrooms, our delivery networks and our UK manufacturing capacity, as well as expansion into other home categories, which we believe will continue to drive long-term growth and profitability.”