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Halfords continues to grow bicycle sales and expects Olympic boom

Britain's biggest bike retailer says interest in Team GB at London 2012 should provide further sales boost...

Bicycles continue to be one of the star performers at Halfords, which has this morning revealed strong sales growth in the category during the final three months of its 2011/12 financial year in an update on trading to the City. The company, which is Britain's biggest bike retailer, is also looking forward to a further boom in sales of bikes due to this summer's Olympics.

Like-for-like figures - based on sales from stores in the UK and Ireland that have been trading for more than 365 days and which therefore provide an accurate year-on-year picture of trading - show that revenue from cycling rose by 5.7 per cent in the three months to 30 March 2012, which the company said was attributable to a "strong performances in Premium and Children's Bikes."

Looking ahead, the Redditch-based company said: "We also anticipate a particularly buoyant, albeit competitive, cycling market this year given the strong interest in Team GB at the Olympics, and our trading plans reflect the intention to maintain our market-leading position."

The performance in bicycles helped Halfords' leisure segment, of which the category forms part, post like-for-like revenue growth of 2.2 per cent during the quarter. Elsewhere in the business, again on a like-for-like basis, Halfords Autocentres saw revenue rise by 8.2 per cent and car maintenance was up 3.1 per cent, but revenue from car enancement plunged by 14.5 per cent. Total UK and Republic of Ireland like-for-like revenue was down by 2.3 per cent for the period.

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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Coleman | 11 years ago
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Perhaps sometime soon people will pop into Halfords and notice that they also have a small car section.

I hope the LBSs are getting some of the action.

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Super Domestique replied to Coleman | 11 years ago
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Coleman wrote:

Perhaps sometime soon people will pop into Halfords and notice that they also have a small car section.

I hope the LBSs are getting some of the action.

I would imagine a few lbs will be getting the 'can you just fix this' from many owners of poorly assembled bikes at least.

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