Trading in line at Home Retail Group

13th Jan 2011 07:35

Argos and Homebase owner Home Retail Group expects full-year pre-tax profits to come in at the mid-point of its previously guided range of £250m to £275m after both of its brands performed in line with expectations.Sales at the catalogue-based chain Argos fell by 3.2% to £1.861bn in the 18 weeks to 1 January, or by 4.9% on a like-for-like basis, stripping out the benefit of new stores. "In difficult markets, video gaming continued to be the most challenging category and televisions were down against last year's good performance," the company said, adding that jewellery was also weak, but laptop and tablet sales did well. An application for Apple devices such as the iPad tablet has been downloaded 1.2m times, Home Retail said. Margins at Argos declined by 25 basis points due to increased clearance activity.Total sales at Homebase, which sells furniture and other goods for the home, declined by 2.8% to £487m.Like-for-like sales declined by 1.2% in the period. 'Big ticket' sales were ahead, while sales for the remaining categories saw modest declines. Promotional activity helped send margins tumbling by 75 basis points.