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Halfords profits approach £100 million as cycling sales continue to boom

Cycling sales up 43 per cent in latest seven-week trading period

Cycling and motoring retailer Halfords says that its annual profits for the 2020/21 financial year are expected to be in the range of £90-£100 million. The company also said that recent weeks have seen disruption to the supply chain start to ease.

That forecast profit figure is net of the impact of the company deciding to repay to the government the £10.7 million it had previously received in furlough support.

The retailer, which sells more bikes in the UK than anyone else, told the City today in a trading update that within cycling, growth in like-for-like (LFL) sales – which take into account changes in the store portfolio – remained strong from 2 January to 19 February, covering the first seven weeks of the fourth quarter of its financial year.

“Cycling has seen LFL growth rates improve as supply disruption has eased, although overall supply remains sub-optimal,” it said.

“Cycling LFL over the period was 43 per cent, with our unique and exclusive range of kids and adult mechanical bikes performing well, along with our performance cycling business, Tredz, which continues to see exceptional growth, up 60 per cent LFL in the period.”

Across the business as a whole, the company said that “overall trading has been stronger than we initially anticipated,” with group LFL growth from 2 January-19 February standing at 6.2 per cent, with retail up 5.1% per cent and Autocentres by 13.3 per cent.

“Despite journeys being c.40 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, our Autocentre business has continued to demonstrate signs of growing market share, with strong demand for both our garage business and Halfords Mobile Expert vans,” Halfords said.

“In Retail, our Motoring business, whilst being -14% LFL, has again performed better than traffic levels would suggest, with sales of blades, bulbs, batteries and general maintenance products performing better.”

The company said that while there are still six weeks left of its financial year, “the expected profit range remains quite broad as trading patterns continue to be volatile, with sales ahead of Easter particularly difficult to predict whilst the UK remains in lockdown.

“As the country starts to open up once more, our overriding priority remains the health and safety of our colleagues and customers.”

Halfords added: “Our next planned trading update will be our Preliminary results announcement on 17 June 2021.”

 

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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25 comments

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Ginsterdrz | 3 years ago
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Halfords closed my local store. They expect us to go to the next county on an 11 mile round trip. I think that's illegal at the moment and I won't be going. I feel sorry for the staff.

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Secret_squirrel replied to Ginsterdrz | 3 years ago
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They have closed a lot of stores and laid off a lot of staff as a result, even at stores they kept open.  This could be a dead cat bounce.   Next year will be more interesting. 

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Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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The boost in bike sales by Halfords is great news for the whole UK bike industry. Just think how many LBS get customers coming in to recify a monstrosity of a build done in a Halfords store. 

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mdavidford | 3 years ago
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Quote:

our unique and exclusive range of kids and adult mechanical bikes

As opposed to their non-mechanical bikes?

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Smoggy Steve replied to mdavidford | 3 years ago
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Who knew there were such things as ebikes? And not the road bike with a motor deal, Halfords sell electric bikes and have done for years. so there is a distinction. 

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brooksby replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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 I think ebikes still count as mechanical, don't they?  3

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mdavidford replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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Pretty sure ebikes still involve mechanics.

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Smoggy Steve replied to mdavidford | 3 years ago
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Electric cars still have mechanical moving parts too but they are still referred to as electric are they not? 

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Hirsute replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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Electric as opposed to petrol, diesel, moonshine.

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mdavidford replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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Not sure what your point is there. Nobody talks about 'mechanical cars'.

There are electric cars and ICE cars (and hydrogen cars, and steam cars, and...) but they're all mechanical.

There are ebikes and human-powered only bikes, but they're all mechanical. 

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OnYerBike replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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Being Halfords, they also need to distinguish between pedal cycles and motorbikes. Although I agree that "mechanical" bikes probably isn't the most useful choice of terminology with which to make that distinction!

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Smoggy Steve replied to OnYerBike | 3 years ago
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exactly, its not my terminology. But I at least grasp the point they were making with the distinction between traditional bikes and ebikes. We refer to electric cars as such because they are outside the norm of what we are used to with petrol/diesel fuelled cars. But a pedant will always look for an argument

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HarrogateSpa replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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It's not pedantry, you've completely changed your argument. Nobody is saying ebikes shouldn't be called ebikes, and electric cars shouldn't be called electric cars.

The original poster queried the use of the term 'mechanical bikes'. Your car analogy is irrelevant, because although we say 'electric cars', we do not say 'mechanical cars'.

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Hirsute replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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No, your analogy was broken.

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Titanus replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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Pedantsno Just tell them to fuck off even if they are write, as they are in this case. 

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Muddy Ford | 3 years ago
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Great news, now perhaps they can move the bike stuff to the ground floor and relegate the car stuff to the mezzanine to highlight the change in priority  1

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Smoggy Steve replied to Muddy Ford | 3 years ago
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Issue is, if you ride a bike you're probably fit enough to climb the stairs without being out of breath. 

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Jetmans Dad replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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We had a Halfords superstore open up a few years ago locally, and as you walked in you turned left to get to the car stuff and right to get to the bike stuff. Worked really well. My most local one does the loads of car stuff on the ground floor, bit of cycling stuff on the mezzanine. 

That said, Halfords takes a lot of grief on sites like this, but I have always found their stock levels and prices for general accessories and consumables to be excellent, and their staff helpful if lacking in specialist technical knowhow (although there are a couple of very knowledgable guys in my local one). 

Never bought a full bike from there though .

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jh2727 replied to Smoggy Steve | 3 years ago
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Smoggy Steve wrote:

Issue is, if you ride a bike you're probably fit enough to climb the stairs without being out of breath. 

Yes, but how does anyone buy their first bike? If you put all the car stuff upstairs and they can't manage to get up the stairs, maybe they'll buy a bike whilst downstairs and next time will be fit enough to get up the stairs and buy their car bits.

The Halfords did a refit and put the bikes on the ground floor. However, they burnt down a short while ago, and I don't know if they kept the same layout after re-opening.

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Smoggy Steve replied to jh2727 | 3 years ago
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Any other jokes you want to kill off? 

But to be honest, Halfords is still automotive as its primary role as far as its customer base is concerned. There are lots and lots of independant bike shops all over the country and I would very much prefer they were allowed to have the majority of the market share and Halfords concentrate on cars etc as there are fewer alternatives for that particluar market. I dont quite like the idea of a national conglomorate putting small independant shops out of business due to a restructuring focussed more at cyclists

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tomascjenkins | 3 years ago
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Their BSOs are wasteful of resources, and a disservice to unsuspecting consumers

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Compact Corned Beef replied to tomascjenkins | 3 years ago
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But they do sell very keenly priced and specced bikes too - the Boardman and Voodoo ranges review very well among the UK cycling press, as a rule.

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HarrogateSpa | 3 years ago
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Good stuff. I quite like Halfords for cheap-ish accessories, inner tubes, bike cleaner etc, and the guys who work at my local one are always helpful.

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TheBillder replied to HarrogateSpa | 3 years ago
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Agreed, I would rather buy from my LBS but there are times when only Halfords are open and the click & collect can be useful. In the one nearest to me they are utterly clueless on bikes but quite good at cars and pleasant enough people. I wouldn't want them to stop doing bikes as it may remind a few carists that there is an alternative, so I feel bad that I am snobbish about the place.

I just wish the shop didn't smell quite so pungent though. Is it mould release agent? Or minicab air freshener? Couldn't they get some Castrol R instead?

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ktache replied to TheBillder | 3 years ago
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It always reminded me of fresh car rubber mats.

And dodgy car air freshners.

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