JB Hi-Fi has reported total sales of $5.16 billion for the 6 months ending 31 December 2023 this is up 0.7% in what has been a difficult trading period for retailers, online sales also grew.
Their shares climbed $6.93% on the news to trade at $60.47 at 12.30.00PM today.
Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) was $386.7 million; net profit after tax came in at $264.3 million a fall of 20%.
The smaller net profit was slightly ahead of market expectations. Sales were slightly below analyst consensus forecasts although the net profit was better than the $245.2m tipped before the offical announcement.
Group CEO, Terry Smart said “We are pleased with our performance as we cycled the elevated customer demand in the prior year. As expected, we saw the trading environment become more challenging, marked.
by heightened competitive activity and increased on-floor discounting.
Our focus remained on maximising customer demand through delivering consistently high levels of customer service and driving best value for our customers.”
Smart described the retail environment as challenging, with January sales growth for JB Hi-Fi Australia up 2.5 per cent, with comparable sales growth of 1.7 per cent; JB in New Zealand sales gained 8.2 per cent while The Good Guys sales fell 2.2 per cent in January.
Total sales increased by 0.7% to $3.62 billion, with comparable sales up 0.1%, driven by continued customer demand for technology and consumer electronics products, supported by well-executed Black Friday and
Boxing Day promotional periods management claimed.
The key growth categories were Mobile Phones, Games Hardware, Small Appliances, Whitegoods and Services.
Online sales increased by 0.8% to $543.1 million or 15.0% of total sales.
Rampant discounting in the period saw gross profit fall by 3.0% to $795.6 million with gross margin down 84 bps to 22.0%.
JB Hi Fi management claim that this was driven by a combination of sales mix and increased levels of on-floor discounting.
JB HI-FI New Zealand saw total sales increase by 5.1% to NZD168.7 million, with comparable sales down 1.2%.
Online sales in NZ increased by 5.8% to NZD20.4 million or 12.1% of total sales.
Gross profit increased by 8.9% to NZD28.2 million with gross margin at 16.7%.
In absolute terms profits grew 27.1% as the Group continued to invest in new stores and strategic initiatives in
New Zealand.
The Board has today declared an interim dividend of 158 cents per share (cps) fully franked, down 39 cps or 19.8%, and representing.
65% of NPAT.
The record date for the interim dividend is 23 February 2024, with payment to be made on 8 March 2024.
