Kingfisher has reported a declining financial result, with profit for the year ended 31 January 2025 dropping by over 46% year over year.
The company’s yearly profit was only £185 million, down from £345 million in the previous year, representing a 46% decrease. Operating profit in FY2024/25 was only £407 million, down from £580 million.
Total sales declined from £12,980 million in FY2023/24 to £12,784 million in FY2024/25. The company’s total sales saw a slight decline, decreasing by 0.8% on a constant currency basis and 1.5% in reported terms. Like-for-like sales dropped by 1.7%, though this included a modest 0.2% boost from the leap-year effect.
In terms of regional market performances, retail profit from the UK and Ireland market increased from £555 million to £558 million, up 0.6%. Like-for-like sales grew by 0.2%, driven by market share gains at B&Q, where strong e-commerce performance and robust TradePoint sales provided a boost. Screwfix also saw an uptick, with both market share gains and positive like-for-like growth contributing to the overall performance.
Business in the Polish market also saw significant improvement, with retail profit up from £82 million in FY2023/24 to £90 million in FY2024/25, representing a 10.5% increase.
However, in France, retail profit declined to only £95 million in FY2024/25, down from £139 million in FY2024/25 or by 31.6%. Like-for-like sales declined by 6.2%, reflecting a challenging consumer environment. However, both Castorama and Brico Dépôt outperformed the market, demonstrating resilience despite the broader downturn.
In terms of sales by category, the core segment, which accounted for 67% of total sales, saw a like-for-like decline of 0.9%, largely driven by repair, maintenance and renovation activity in existing homes. Big-ticket items, making up 15% of sales, faced a sharper drop of 4.4% due to weaker market trends. However, there were encouraging signs in the fourth quarter, with like-for-like sales rising by 0.6%.
Seasonal sales, representing 18% of the total, declined by 2.5%, impacted by unfavourable weather conditions in the second quarter.
“For the first time in over six years, we grew our market share in all key regions. We delivered a profit and free cash flow in line with or ahead of our initial guidance, with strong delivery against our strategic objectives. As expected, the wider market backdrop was a headwind, though we maintained our laser focus on managing costs and cash, removing £120m of structural costs and lowering same-store inventory by over £100m,” said Thierry Garnier, CEO of Kingfisher.
Looking ahead, the pre-tax profit for FY2025/26 will be between £480 million to £540 million, compared to £528 million in FY2024/25, due to a one-off benefit in the prior year of £33 million related to business rates refunds at B&Q and an about £10 million year-over-year benefit from the sale of its Romanian business.
