Dick Smith sales slow down in second quarter

Sales at Dick Smith Electronics slowed considerably in the final months of 2009, despite an improved performance at the company’s newly refurbished outlets.

DSE, the major component of Woolworths’ consumer electronics division, achieved comparable sales of 7.2% for the second quarter with the new format stores doing better than ‘old format’ stores.

Total CE division sales grew 5.9% during the first half but only by 0.2% in the second quarter. CE sales in Australia and New Zealand declined by 2.1% in the second quarter with Australian sales up only 0.3%. New Zealand sales decreased by 6.5% in the second quarter.

First half CE sales in Australia amounted to $710 million, up 4.3% on the previous year. Categories that had “pleasing results” included computers, entertainment and gaming.

Woolworths’ joint CE venture with the TATA group in India continues to expand with sales at 40 Croma stores up 37.8% to $124 million in the first half.

DSE opened 13 stores (nine in Australia and four in NZ) during the first half taking the total number of stores to 433.