A STRONG festive performance by under-pressure catalogue retailer Argos yesterday sent shares in owner Home Retail Group up 12.4% even as its DIY-arm Homebase struggled.
Meanwhile, Dixons Retail, owner of Currys and PC World, benefited from "phenomenal" demand for tablet computers and the collapse of rival Comet.
Children's store Mothercare, however, turned in another poor performance.
Argos, which has 66 stores in Scotland, appears to have benefited from the growing enthusiasm for click-and-collect shopping whereby customers order items online then pick them up from a store.
It posted a 2.7% rise in like-for-like sales in the 18 weeks to January 5. City analysts had expected a 0.2% improvement.
Internet sales now represent 42% of Argos's total sales. Within this, sales from mobile devices rose 125%.
Underlying sales in the period at Homebase, which has 41 stores in Scotland, fell 3.9% – worse than the 2.1% decline forecast by analysts – as shoppers stayed away from big ticket purchases.
After telling investors its annual pre-tax profit would be £10 million ahead of current market consensus at £73m, Home Retail Group's shares closed up 15.1p at 136.6p. They have risen 49% in the last year.
But some remain sceptical.
Ross Bailey, director of retail consultancy Appear Here, said Argos's shares came at the price of profit margin. He added: "Propped up at the bar in the last-chance saloon, Homebase's demise is looking as assured as a New Year's Day hangover."
Dixons said its like-for-like sales in the UK and Ireland were up 8% in the 12 weeks to January 5, despite administrators for Comet holding a clearance sale for most of the period.
Dixons has 44 stores in Scotland, most of them operating both the Currys and PC World brands. It sold more than one million tablet computers in the UK and Ireland over the period. Five were sold every second in the week before Christmas.
Chief executive Sebastian James said: "Tablet sales were phenomenal across our markets, which was good to see but which impacted overall headline margins somewhat."
Margins were down 0.5% in the period, because the mark-up on tablet computers is lower than on laptops.
Dixons said it expected underlying profits for the year to be in line with market expectations of between £75m and £85m. Its shares closed up 0.14p at 27.25p.
Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said: "The gulf on the high street between the haves and have-nots is becoming increasingly evident. Within this mix, Dixons is another Christmas winner."
Baby and maternity products retailer Mothercare posted a 7.4% fall in third quarter total group sales, despite seeking to cut prices and improve stores and delivery services.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article