Currys has beaten its annual profit expectations and resumed its dividend payments to shareholders as boss Alex Baldock and co have put their turnaround phase behind them.
The last few years have been ones of rebuilding for Currys. In 2023, the retailer was struggling, with like-for-like sales slipping and profits in the red.
The brand was particularly struggling with its international businesses, with its Nordics division underperforming and the brand still tethered to its unwanted Greek business Kotsovolos which it was desperate to sell.
The following year was one of turnaround – the retailer shifted its Greek business and began the process of rebuilding its balance sheet with improving sales and profits – even as it faced into the cost-of-living headwinds which beset the wider retail sector.
Now the retailer is back in the black, and back in business. The tech giant upgraded its adjusted profit before tax to £162m for the year ending May 3, 2025, while like-for-like group revenues jumped 2% to £8.7bn for the period.
“The balance sheet is at its strongest in a decade,” said chief executive Alex Baldock. “It’s all coming from a strategy that’s working, a strategy that sees us number one in every market that we play in”.
Having come out of its turnaround period, Baldock today set out his priorities to keep the good times rolling at Currys for the rest of the year, and beyond.
‘Customers for life’
Baldock said that Currys has been focusing on building up a long-term, repeat customer base, which he referred to as “customers for life”, by offering customers more services for them beyond the initial purchase of their tech product.
“We have both channels, we’re improving both in-store and online and gaining market share. We’ve grown more customers for life in our language over the past year, with customers who keep coming back to Currys by selling more of the complete solutions that they want and that make Currys more money by selling more of the services that help customers enjoy their technology to the fullest throughout its life.
“Like credit services that help customers get started and repair services that gives their tech a longer life and the connectivity that helps them get the most out of their tech. All of those have been in healthy growth over the past year. That’s good for customers and its good for Currys,” he added.
In terms of the outlook for the rest of the year, the retailer said that it would be targeting continued growth in “higher margin, recurring revenue services, including reaching at least 2.5 million iD mobile subscribers before year end”.
Riding the heatwave
Where some retailers, most notably Greggs yesterday, have seen footfall drop in the recent spate of hot weather, Baldock said that sales of fans and air conditioning units have been through the roof at Currys.
“Fans are flying out of the stores, as are air conditioning units and outdoor living products, like barbeques, and other products that people want to buy when it’s hot.”
While Currys has enjoyed the warm start to the year from a sales point of view, Baldock says that the brand’s ranges combined with its collection of services for customers means it’s no longer beholden to seasonal spikes in customer activity.
“We’re now less affected by ups and downs,” he said. “Whether that’s the economic cycle, whether it’s seasonal, or whether it’s short-term weather, because we’re building more stabilisers into our performance as we grow our business serving the small to medium-sized business customers.
“We’re less affected by the consumer cycle as we build out the services and solutions and they become an increasingly important part of our total sales. We’re building those recurring revenues that keep coming whatever the weather might be, or whatever the season or the cycle might be”.
Connected and online
In terms of the retailer’s strongest performing categories over the last year, Baldock said that mobile and computing have been great drivers of growth.
Now five years on from Covid-19, Baldock said that many customers are looking to replace the laptops they may have bought in the first lockdown, and many people are also dealing with the end of the Microsoft 10 support period which closes in October.
“All of those things are driving a particularly strong performance in mobile and computing,” he said. Adding that new computing technologies and products, such as AI-powered devices are also a “big driver” of new sales.
Alongside that, Baldock says that Currys has also been expanding into new categories to meet consumer demand. “Products like barbeques, health and beauty and fitness products, categories in which we were underweight but are growing fast,” he said.
“You can go into a Currys store now and you’ll see a whole load of new products, everything from pet tech to electrical face masks that customers are buying. There’s a lot for us to go for as we grow the total market that we’re playing.”
Consumer outlook still mixed
Baldock was also asked about how he sees consumer confidence heading into the rest of the year.
“It’s a mixed picture. Inflation seems to be stuck at over 3% and has stopped falling, at least for now, as that is twice the rate of a year ago. Confidence is also lower than it was a year ago, and low by historical standards. That clearly feeds through into the spending.
“On the more rosy side, wages are climbing faster than inflation. Interest rates are on the way down. And while consumer confidence is relatively low, it is improving. It’s nudging up and consumers are saving a bit less and spending a bit more.
“It’s a mixed picture,” he added. “But the story for us is that we’re not depending on the outside world to do us any favours. We’ve got quite used to running up a downwards escalator in this business over recent years, we haven’t depended on any market growth in the past year to show the 4% like-for-like sales increase that we posted in the UK.”
International trade jitters
While Currys is not directly affected by the US trade tariffs, Baldock said that they are having a chilling effect on the global economic situation, which in turn is harming consumer confidence more generally.
“The better the global economic situation is, the higher the consumer demand tends to be and the happier people like me tend to be,” he added.
“We don’t face any direct impact at all, but of course everybody is impacted by tariffs if it dampens global demand for products, as tariffs tend to do. The freer the trade, the better the global economic picture”.
Nordics performance still mixed
Baldock also said that the retailer’s Nordics division is “heading in the right direction”, although noted it was still facing into a number of headwinds. The retailer said Nordics profits were improving despite tough market conditions, and that like-for-like revenues were flat with an adjusted EBIT of £72m.
“The Nordics is facing into the same standard headwind in terms of wage rates increased in general inflation”, he said, before adding it was similar in terms of the pressures on the consumer being seen currently in the UK.
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