The company said adding groceries, cutting supply costs to supermarkets and an increase of market share resulted in the profit increase, whereby net income rose to $891.3 million in the six months ended Dec. 30 from $695.6 million a year earlier.

The consumer electronics unit of the business, which includes Dick Smith and Powerhouse, booked a 5.7 percent increase in earnings to $40.8 million.

But Woolworths CEO Michael Luscombe said there is room to improve, with the company now planning to conduct a review of the Dick Smith business in order to gain the same kind of market leading position that the rest of the company's chains enjoy.

"There will be significant changes in Dick Smith stores in the coming months," said Luscombe. "We have commenced a review of the positioning and ranging within the business with a number of new format trial stores operating in the market," he said.

Luscombe also said the review would be conducted in the same line as its successful Big W review, and would see Dick Smith reduce its focus on electrical parts such as cables, but did not go into details on the plan.

Dick Smith will add a further 21 stores in the second half of the year to the 24 opened in the first half, while Dick Smith's Indian joint venture with Tata now has 13 stores under the Croma brand with 16 to open by the end of March.