We Help Everyone Enjoy Amazing Technology

Chief Executive's Review

Over the past year, we have maintained our encouraging momentum. In the UK&I, adjusted EBIT grew +8%, and our market share increased by +50bps to 16.9%. In the Nordics, adjusted EBIT grew +18% (+24% currency neutral), while our market share remained stable at 28.1%. This progress was based on the continued execution of our long-term strategy.

We start from a position of strength. In the Nordics our market share makes us the clear market leader and, even during a difficult last few years, we delivered sales and profits that are significantly better than peers. In the UK&I, our Mobile business has shown another year of growth from a stable base. Reflecting this, we now include Mobile in our stated market share, resulting in an overall market share of 16.9%, +50bps YoY (under our old definition excluding Mobile, market share is 23.5%, +30bps YoY). This reflects the strength we have in our core categories. In such areas as TVs, laundry and refrigeration we have over 30% market share, and in Windows computing we have almost 50% share.  Conversely there are areas where we have much lower share, and many of these represent opportunities to grow. Gaming is a good example of where we have gained share in a growing market, with our UK gaming sales up +65% over the last 5 years.

Our strategy

The strategy we follow is simple. We're here to help everyone enjoy amazing technology. To do so, we want capable and committed colleagues, delivering an easy to shop customer experience, creating customers for life, and ultimately growing our profits and cashflows.

We prioritise our colleagues because delivering a great customer experience starts with ensuring a great colleague experience. We support colleagues through the training they receive, tools to make their jobs easier, and the reward they earn. We set out to build a winning culture, one that puts customers first, prizes winning together, and where we all take ownership. We measure our progress through colleague engagement surveys, which showed that Group employee satisfaction climbed +1pt to 82, firmly amongst the top 5% of global companies¹ (in the UK&I, our score of 85 puts us in the top 3%). While the score is satisfying, the survey is most useful in helping us identify areas for improvement. In March, over 22,000 colleagues participated in the survey, providing 54,000 comments. Responding to this feedback not only makes our colleagues' lives easier and more productive but shows that we are really listening and reinforces a world-class culture. This is a competitive advantage that is hard to replicate.  

Easy to Shop is about making sure we get right the retail fundamentals of price, range, availability, and an easy customer experience, that we get it right first time for customers; and making the most of an omnichannel model that fits well with how most customers prefer to shop for technology. This year we have invested in our channels to make shopping easier. In UK, we invested in better tools, such as adding electronic shelf edge labelling (ESEL) to 100 stores. This innovation has been successful in the Nordics, creates a better customer experience, allows more nimble pricing and saves colleagues' time. Given the success of the programme, we now expect to add ESEL to all remaining stores in 2025/26. We also re-engineered 115 stores, to dedicate more space to categories that are faster-selling and more profitable, and to allow more room for expansion into new categories.

Our main websites (currys.co.uk, Elkjøp.no, elgiganten.se, elgiganten.dk and gigantti.fi), receive over 500m visits per year. In the Nordics we in-housed front-end development, and fully migrated to our Next Level platform, saving £2m per year, while increasing site speed and accelerating change processes. Across both markets the continual improvement programme has seen over 200 changes to improve the shopping journey; from easier navigation, searching and filtering, through to an easier checkout with enhanced payment options. This has led to a +25bps increase in conversion in the UK and a +22bps increase in the Nordics, driving growth. We have also improved the order & collect journey, and together with better store processes, this has driven +15% growth in order & collect revenue, which now represents 34% of our Group online revenue, +210bps YoY.

The third leg of our strategy is to create Customers for Life. This starts with good customer data. We want to collect, protect and use data for the benefit of customers, ourselves and third parties. We are making strides in this area with continued growth of the Nordics customer club, now up to 9.6m members, but there is much more to go for. In the UK&I we have significant customer bases in Credit, iD Mobile, Repair plans and Currys Perks, but we are not yet doing a good enough job of getting these bases working in tandem, and our progress here has been slower than we hoped. We have brought in new leadership to go after this opportunity.

Another big driver of Customers for Life is our unique range of services and solutions that help customers afford and enjoy amazing technology to the full.

We aim to sell complete solutions, where we provide customers with everything they need, including products, accessories, and services, rather than just a single product. Over the last two years, our UK&I 'sold with' adoption rate has more than doubled to 40% and our Nordic value-added service adoption has almost tripled to 29%. Solution-selling helps customers make the most of their technology while growing our profits.

Services are core to these solutions. We help customers afford (often expensive) tech through credit. Credit is a significant driver of sales, profit and loyalty. Customers who use credit are happier, buy more, and shop more frequently, resulting in lifetime sales that are double those of non-credit customers. We estimate that around 30% of credit sales would not have happened without our credit offer. To reflect the increased flexibility of our credit options, we rebranded our UK credit offer to Currys flexpay during the year. We also invested in tools and processes to make it easier for colleagues and customers to use credit, including introducing it to our online in-store sales. As a result of this, we saw UK&I credit adoption climb +180bps YoY to 21.9%, more than double the adoption of four years ago, and we generated £1.1bn of UK&I sales on credit, making us one of the UK's leading brokers of retail credit. As well as additional sales, credit makes a direct profit contribution and as credit scales, we can use some of this profit to invest in the customer offer, driving further sales. We are now in that virtuous circle with credit.

We help customers get started, through installation and set-up. We are in the privileged position of being trusted in customers' homes and our in-home customer satisfaction is amongst the highest of all the activities we carry out. During the year, 31% of UK big box deliveries included installation, a rise of +320bps YoY, and 34% of deliveries included recycling. In the Nordics, 44% of big-box deliveries included installation, an increase of +220bps YoY, and 36% of big box deliveries included recycling, an increase of +190bps YoY.

Once they have the tech, customers want to give it longer life. We are uniquely positioned to support our customers with repair services in Norway, Sweden, and the UK, where we operate one of Europe's largest technology repair centres. We are the only tech retailer operating our own repair facilities, allowing us to offer customers the protection they want at good value, while giving them the peace of mind that they will only ever be dealing with one organisation. The result of this can been seen in the 11.9m protection plans in place across the Group. During the year, our team of almost 1,500 engineers completed 1.6m customer repair activities, both at our repair centres and in customers' homes.

Repair is an area where we are truly differentiated and in which we will continue to invest. During the year we expanded RepairLive, our award-winning service that allows customers to speak directly to engineers in our repair centre to diagnose and fix product issues. The 320,000 customers served this way last year benefitted from keeping tech working without needing to send it for a physical fix in our operations, or, if a physical fix was needed our engineers having the right parts with them when visiting customers' homes. In this way customers benefit from having tech working more of the time and we benefit from lower labour and write off costs. We have signed new agreements with suppliers, including being the first third-party authorised to repair Microsoft's Surface and Xbox. We are developing new AI-backed solutions alongside engineers to diagnose product issues from customer videos, with all the same benefit as RepairLive, but without the need for a real time conversation.

When technology reaches the end of its life, we encourage everyone to bring their old or unwanted tech to our stores for free reuse or recycling, regardless of where they purchased it. If we can't reuse it, then we can harvest the parts, with 25% of parts needed for repair are now from harvesting; or we can recycle it.

Currys has worked on responsible recycling for many years. We provide free in-store drop off, and collect our customers' unwanted electrical equipment and small electrical appliances for recycling when we deliver their new technology. In 2024/25, 5.5 million e-waste products were collected for reuse and recycling across the Group.

The circularity of trade-in, protection, repair, refurbishment, reuse and recycling is part of our business model. We are helping customers, the planet and our profits at the same time.

Finally, we help customers get the most out of their tech, with connectivity being the greatest enabler of this.

Mobile remained one of the best performing areas of the business in the last year. iD Mobile, our 100% owned MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) in the UK, had another very strong year. Subscriber numbers climbed to 2.2m, +26% higher YoY and +70% Yo2Y. Early in the year we launched the iD app, which is now being used by 73% of customers, giving them more control over their plan, and halving queries into our contact centre. We see the long-term value in iD and aim to grow to at least 2.5m subscribers this year.

We intend to continue growing such sources of higher margin, recurring revenue such as credit, repair and connectivity so that over time our business mixes away from single product purchases to the more predictable, recurring and higher margin revenue streams of solution sales. In the last year, the Group revenue derived from these sources grew +9% to £814m.

Delivering a stronger performance

Delivering on our strategy has important measurable benefits: it drives improved customer satisfaction, it grows our sales and market share, and it delivers better gross margins.

Customer satisfaction climbed to new highs. In the UK, our NPS climbed to 55, +6pts Yo2Y as we saw improvement across both channels and at each stage of the customer journey. In the Nordics, we implemented NPS during the year, with an initial reading of 63. It is safe to say that our leadership teams are enjoying the healthy competition on this metric.

Market share was healthy in both markets. In the UK&I, we gained +50bps of share including gains both in-store and online. In the Nordics, market share was flat in a market that declined slightly, as we focused trading on delivering gross margin improvements. We're pleased that not only are our customers telling us they're happier (through NPS), they're showing they are (through higher market share).

Gross margin continued to climb. The UK&I gross margin rose +20bps and is now +240bps higher than four years ago, while the Nordics gross margin rose +60bps to a level higher than four years ago. This has been driven by selling solutions and services, monetising and improving customer experience, not chasing less profitable sales and by cost efficiencies in our supply chain and service operations.

Financial discipline

Alongside improvements in gross profit, we remain focused on controlling operating costs. This has been particularly successful in the Nordics, where costs were broadly flat, offsetting all inflationary headwinds and helping us to drive profit growth. Over the last two years we made notable improvements in our marketing operating model, using our scale and centralising work to save almost £10m in annual costs. We will continue to face cost headwinds in the UK&I in the coming year, including an additional £32m of annual costs from the UK government's Autumn 2024 budget. To mitigate this impact we are underway with removing central costs, and continuing to automate and offshore activities.

Financial discipline extends to cash. Capital expenditure rose as planned and we have ensured that the spend made has delivered the expected paybacks. Working capital, after three consecutive years of outflow, was positive as improved processes on forecasting and payments have more than offset the £24m working capital headwind from iD Mobile growth.

The result of all this is clear in improved profit and cashflow. Free cash flow rose +82% to £149m, and we finished the year with £184m net cash. Alongside a pension deficit of £(103)m, this £81m net position is £901m better than six years ago.

Levers for growth in the year ahead

The Group is well positioned, as the clear #1 brand in all our markets, with a diversified revenue base and a strategy that is working for colleagues, customers and financially. Together with the strengthened balance sheet, this gives us the confidence and bandwidth to go after opportunities for further growth. There are three areas that are likely to be most important for the year ahead.

The first is computing. Across both PCs and Gaming, we are in an exciting period of growth. In PCs, we are now five years on from the pandemic, and the natural replacement cycle of machines bought during lock-down is likely to start building. This could be further catalysed by Windows 10 going out of support in the Autumn, triggering millions of Windows 10 users in the UK to look at their computing requirements. Then, there is AI. The consumer use cases for AI are developing rapidly, the adoption of them is climbing and the cost of the products is decreasing. Our Group is uniquely placed as we have the scale and supplier relationships that allow us to invest in colleague training, customer marketing and stock to become the go-to retailer for customers in this area. The 75% share we have in Windows AI computing in the UK is testament to this. In Gaming, exciting new products such as the Nintendo Switch 2 and ROG Xbox Ally X will be complemented by new NVIDIA graphics cards and further innovation in gaming accessories. We have done a good job capturing growth in this market over the last few years, but there is still an attractive opportunity ahead of us.

Second, we have an opportunity to grow in new products. This includes categories where we are present but underweight and see opportunities to gain share, such as Health & Beauty; new product categories of tech that we haven't sold before, such as pet tech; and products that are adjacent to technology, where our infrastructure and capabilities give us the right to play, such as BBQs. Our growing Nordics kitchen business, Epoq, is an exciting such opportunity. In total, new products represent a substantial opportunity while requiring limited investment.

Thirdly, we are increasingly excited about the B2B opportunity with small-to-medium sized businesses (especially those with fewer than 100 employees). We have much of what it takes to serve these customers, by virtue of our core B2C business: suppliers, products, services, channels, supply chain and service operations.  On top of this, over the past 18 months we've also now established the B2B leadership team, specialist store colleagues and hubs, online presence, account management, and remote service capabilities to go after this opportunity meaningfully in the UK&I. In this we've learned from the Nordics, which is further advanced in exploiting this opportunity with B2B enjoying 3x higher share of business than the UK&I. This fact, and a total accessible market that could be as large as the existing B2C market, shows there is much more go for in B2B. We aim to at least double our UK&I B2B sales over the next three years.

Growth in all these areas is further boosted by the increasing traction our brand is getting. Across both traditional and social media, Currys is gaining a bigger, even "cult" status. The level of engagement we are seeing is world class. This is being noticed externally (we have won awards from Channel 4 and at Cannes Lion), by our suppliers who are seeing better ROI on their spend, and most importantly by customers, with our Currys brand preference exiting the year at 26%, +5pts higher than three years ago.

In recent years, our focus has been on driving growth in profits and cash, even at the expense of some market share. We will continue to ensure that any growth we pursue is profitable, and that all investments are closely monitored to generate the targeted returns.

Summary

Our ambition remains unchanged. We aim to engage thousands of capable colleagues, delight millions of customers, and generate increasing amounts of free cash flow, with more of it being returned to our shareholders.

Now, more than ever, I am confident that we are on the right path to fulfilling these ambitions.

 

¹Viva-Glint, April 2025 survey, completed by 22,200 colleagues across the Group.

Results call

There will be a live presentation followed by Q&A call for investors and analysts at 9:30am BST today.

It will be webcast here: https://brrmedia.news/CURY_FY_2025

Next scheduled announcement

The Group is scheduled to publish a trading update at its AGM on 4 September 2025.

For further information

Dan Homan	Investor Relations	+44 (0)7401 400442
Tim Danaher	Brunswick Group	+44 (0)2074 045959

Information on Currys plc is available at www.currysplc.com
Follow us on LinkedIn and X: @currysplc

 

About Currys plc

Currys plc is a leading omnichannel retailer of technology products and services, operating online and through 708 stores in 6 countries. We Help Everyone Enjoy Amazing Technology, however they choose to shop with us.

In the UK & Ireland we trade as Currys and in the UK we operate our own mobile virtual network, iD Mobile. In the Nordics we trade under the Elkjøp brand. We're the market leader in all markets, able to serve all households and employing more than 24,000 capable and committed colleagues.

We help everyone enjoy amazing technology. We believe in the power of technology to improve lives, helping people stay connected, productive, fit, healthy, and entertained. We're here to help everyone enjoy those benefits and with our scale and expertise, we are uniquely placed to do so.

Our full range of services and support makes it easy for our customers to discover, choose, afford and enjoy the right technology to the full. The Group's operations include one of Europe's largest technology repair facilities, a sourcing office in Hong Kong and an extensive distribution network, centred on Newark in the UK and Jönköping in Sweden, enabling fast and efficient delivery to stores and homes.

We're a leader in giving technology a longer life through repair, recycling and reuse. We're reducing our impact on the environment in our operations and our wider value chain and we aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2040. We offer customers products that help them save energy, reduce waste and save water, and we partner with charitable organisations to bring the benefits of amazing technology to those who might otherwise be excluded.

Certain statements made in this announcement are forward-looking. Such statements are based on current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any expected future events or results referred to in these forward-looking statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable laws, regulations or accounting standards, we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. Information contained on the Currys plc website or the 'X' feed does not form part of this announcement and should not be relied on as such.

 

 

Performance Review

Our business is managed and evaluated across two reporting segments: UK & Ireland and Nordics. The table below presents the combined Group results, followed by detailed explanations for each segment.

Following the disposal of Kotsovolos on 10 April 2024, the Greece reporting segment has been removed from the prior year results.

Income Statement	2024/25 £m	2023/24 £m	Reported % change	Currency neutral % change
Revenue	8,706	8,476	+3%	+4%
Recurring service revenue1	814	749	+9%	-
Adjusted EBITDA	491	479	+3%	+4%
Adjusted EBITDA margin	5.6%	5.7%	(10) bps	-
Depreciation of right-of-use assets	(181)	(178)
Depreciation of other assets	(39)	(41)
Amortisation	(46)	(57)
Adjusted EBIT	225	203	+11%	+13%
Adjusted EBIT margin	2.6%	2.4%	+20 bps	+20 bps
Interest on lease liabilities	(56)	(59)
Finance income	11	4
Adjusted finance costs	(18)	(30)
Adjusted PBT	162	118	+37%	+41%
Adjusted PBT margin	1.9%	1.4%	+50 bps	+50 bps
Adjusted tax	(40)	(31)
Adjusted Profit after tax on continuing operations	122	87
Adjusted EPS	11.3p	7.9p
Statutory Reconciliation
Adjusting items to EBITDA	(4)	(63)
EBITDA	487	416	+17%	+19%
Adjusting items to depreciation and amortisation	(23)	(23)
EBIT	198	117	+69%	73%
EBIT Margin	2.3%	1.4%	+90 bps	+90 bps
Adjusting items to finance costs	(11)	(4)
PBT	124	28	+343%	+357%
Adjusting items to tax	24	30
Profit after tax on continuing operations	108	27	+300%	+331%
EPS - total	10.0p	14.9p

1.        Recurring service revenue is the total of Commission, Support service and Connectivity revenue.

 

 

 

Cash flow	2024/25 £m	2023/24 £m	Reported  % change	Currency neutral % change
Adjusted EBITDAR	495	483	+2%	+4%
Adjusted EBITDAR margin	5.7%	5.7%	-	-
Cash payments of leasing costs	(249)	(247)
Other non-cash items in EBIT	14	10
Operating cash flow	260	246	+6%	+7%
Operating cash flow margin	3.0%	2.9%	+10 bps	+10 bps
Capital expenditure	(77)	(48)
Adjusting items to cash flow	(33)	(48)
Free cash flow before working capital	150	150	-	+3%
Working capital	38	(2)
Network receivable	(24)	(32)
Segmental free cash flow	164	116	+41%	+45%
Cash tax paid	(4)	(7)
Cash interest paid	(11)	(27)
Free cash flow	149	82	+82%	+85%
Dividend	-	-
Purchase of own shares - share buyback	-	-
Purchase of own shares - employee benefit trust	(15)	(12)
Pension	(50)	(36)
Disposals including discontinued operations	(5)	162
Other	9	(3)
Movement in net cash / (debt)	88	193	(54)%	(59)%
Net cash	184	96	+92%	+86%

 

 

 

 

 

UK & Ireland

	2024/25	2023/24
Number of stores
UK	280	282
Ireland	16	16
Total UK&I	296	298
Selling space '000 sq. ft
UK	5,159	5,223
Ireland	207	207
Total UK&I	5,366	5,430

 

Income Statement	2024/25 £m	2023/24 £m	Reported % change	Currency neutral % change
Revenue	5,286	4,970	+6%	+6%
Of which recurring service revenue1	606	541	+12%	-
Adjusted EBITDA	306	294	+4%	+4%
Adjusted EBITDA margin	5.8%	5.9%	(10) bps	(10) bps
Depreciation of right-of-use assets	(98)	(97)
Depreciation of other assets	(19)	(18)
Amortisation	(36)	(37)
Adjusted EBIT	153	142	+8%	+8%
Adjusted EBIT margin	2.9%	2.9%	-	-
Adjusting items to EBIT	(8)	(54)
EBIT	145	88	+65%	+66%
EBIT margin	2.7%	1.8%	+90 bps	+100 bps
Cash flow
Adjusted EBITDAR	310	298	+4%	+4%
Adjusted EBITDAR margin	5.9%	6.0%	(10) bps	(10) bps
Cash payments of leasing costs	(148)	(150)
Other non-cash items in EBIT	14	8
Operating cash flow	176	156	+13%	+13%
Operating cash flow margin	3.3%	3.1%	+20 bps	+20 bps
Capital expenditure	(50)	(22)
Adjusting items to cash flow	(28)	(32)
Free cash flow before working capital	98	102	(4)%	(4)%
Working capital	21	13
Network receivable	(24)	(32)
Segmental free cash flow	95	83	+14%	+14%

1.        Recurring service revenue is the total of Commission, Support service and Connectivity revenue.

 

Total UK&I sales increased +6%, driven by like-for-like sales growth of +4%. The 53^rd week added around +2% to revenue but did not have a material impact on profits or cashflow. The online share of business increased +2%pts to 47%.

Mobile was the strongest performing category, with growth in iD Mobile and handset-only sales. Computing sales were also positive, with AI technology sales building momentum. Consumer electronics and domestic appliances were stable compared to last year. Additional growth was driven by new categories and accessories which grew significantly from a low base. Growth was supported by additional above-the-line and online performance marketing.  

The UK&I market was broadly flat year-on-year, with the store channel reducing by around (5)% while the online market increased by +2%. Our market share was up +50bps compared to the previous year, with growth in both channels.

Gross margin increased +20bps reflecting the higher adoption rate of credit and other services, complete solution sales and costs savings and efficiencies to offset inflation in supply chain. There was also a continued focus on the end-to-end profitability of product sales. Operating costs increased in absolute terms due to wage and other inflation, as well as deliberate investment in marketing and increases in expensed investment spend. The operating expense to sales ratio worsened by (20)bps as these cost increases more than offset operating leverage.

Adjusted EBIT increased to £153m at 2.9% EBIT margin, flat YoY.

In the period, adjusting items to EBIT totalled £(8)m mainly due to £(11)m of amortisation, £(6)m of restructuring charges, +£3m of provision release for onerous contract following successful renegotiation, and +£7m of provision release related to historical regulatory matters. The cash costs in the period primarily relate to ongoing strategic change and leases on closed properties.

	2024/25 £m		2023/24 £m
	P&L	Cash	P&L	Cash
Acquisition / disposal related items	(11)	-	(11)	-
Strategic change programmes	(6)	(24)	(11)	(26)
Impairment losses and onerous contracts	3	(1)	(17)	(2)
Regulatory	7	(2)	(13)	(3)
Other	(1)	(1)	(2)	(1)
Total	(8)	(28)	(54)	(32)

 

Operating cash flow was up +13% to £176m due to higher operating profit, slightly offset by lower lease costs. Capital expenditure more than doubled to £50m due to the planned resumption of investment during the year, with spend focused on channel improvements and a variety of small-scale IT and system upgrades. Adjusting items are described above. Working capital cash outflow was driven by the growth of iD Mobile, with the total £24m iD Mobile related outflow almost entirely offset by efficiencies in the rest of the business. In combination, this resulted in segmental free cash inflow of £95m, +£12m higher than last year.

 

Nordics

			2024/25				2023/24
Number of stores	Own stores	Franchise stores		Total	Own stores	Franchise stores		Total
Norway	75	64		139	80	64		144
Sweden	93	77		170	96	76		172
Denmark	49	-		49	47	-		47
Finland	20	18		38	20	22		42
Other Nordics	-	16		16	-	16		16
Nordics	237	175		412	243	178		421
Selling space '000 sq ft	Own stores	Franchise stores		Total	Own stores	Franchise stores		Total
Norway	1,028	652		1,680	1,062	654		1,716
Sweden	1,106	404		1,510	1,150	389		1,539
Denmark	816	-		816	788	-		788
Finland	507	166		673	508	196		704
Other Nordics	-	106		106	-	106		106
Nordics	3,457	1,328		4,785	3,508	1,345		4,853

 

Income Statement	2024/25 £m	2023/24 £m	Reported % change	Currency neutral % change
Revenue	3,420	3,506	(2)%	-
Of which recurring service revenue1	208	208	-	-
Adjusted EBITDA	185	185	-	+4%
Adjusted EBITDA margin	5.4%	5.3%	+10 bps	+20 bps
Depreciation of right-of-use assets	(83)	(81)
Depreciation of other assets	(20)	(23)
Amortisation	(10)	(20)
Adjusted EBIT	72	61	+18%	+24%
Adjusted EBIT margin	2.1%	1.7%	+40 bps	+40 bps
Adjusting items to EBIT	(19)	(32)
EBIT	53	29	+83%	+100%
EBIT margin	1.5%	0.8%	+70 bps	+80 bps
Cash flow
Adjusted EBITDAR	185	185	-	+3%
Adjusted EBITDAR margin	5.4%	5.3%	+10 bps	+10 bps
Cash payments of leasing costs	(101)	(97)
Other non-cash items in EBIT	-	2
Operating cash flow	84	90	(7)%	(2)%
Operating cash flow margin	2.5%	2.6%	(10) bps	(10) bps
Capital expenditure	(27)	(26)
Adjusting items to cash flow	(5)	(16)
Free cash flow before working capital	52	48	+8%	+16%
Working capital	17	(15)
Segmental free cash flow	69	33	+109%	+111%

1.        Recurring service revenue is the total of Commission, Support service and Connectivity revenue.

 

Revenue remained flat on a currency neutral basis, driven by flat like-for-like sales. The 53^rd week added c.+2% to revenue, but did not have a material impact on profits or cashflow. The online share of business increased +2%pts to 29%.

Compared to last year, the Nordic market declined around (1)% as weakness in Mobile was largely offset by growth in small domestic appliances and consumer electronics, while major domestic appliances and computing were flat YoY. Our market share was stable at 28.1%.

Gross margin was again up strongly, growing +60bps YoY, and +240bps compared to two years ago. This was driven through balanced trading and focus on strategic initiatives, particularly increased service revenue. Operating costs were broadly flat as cost savings across marketing, procurement and changes to the store portfolio offset the impact of inflation. The operating expense to sales ratio worsened by (20)bps due to operating deleverage from lower sales.

As a result, adjusted EBIT increased by +18% (+24% on a currency neutral basis) to £72m.

In the period, adjusting items to EBIT totalled £(19)m, with £(12)m due to the amortisation of acquisition intangibles as well as £(7)m of restructuring costs. The cash cost of restructuring was £(5)m in the year.

	2024/25 £m		2023/24 £m
	P&L	Cash	P&L	Cash
Acquisition / disposal related items	(12)	-	(12)	-
Strategic change programmes	(7)	(5)	(5)	(16)
Impairment losses and onerous contracts	-	-	(15)	-
Total	(19)	(5)	(32)	(16)

Operating cash flow reduced by (7)% to £84m, driven by higher leasing cost. Capital expenditure was £27m, a +4% increase YoY as investment was maintained. Significant areas of expenditure included store refits, IT transformation and our new Nordic Distribution Centre in Jönköping. Working capital inflow was £17m, due to deliberately lower stock levels and timings of year end promotional campaigns.  

 

Finance Costs

Interest on lease liabilities was £(56)m, lower than last year and in line with the decrease in our overall lease commitment. The cash impact of this interest is included within "Cash payments of leasing costs" in segmental free cash flow.

The adjusted net finance costs were lower than last year primarily due to lower interest costs as the Group's indebtedness substantially improved. The net cash impact of these costs was £(11)m from £(27)m in the prior year.

The finance cost on the defined benefit pension scheme is an adjusting item and decreased by £(3)m compared to the prior year due to the lower balance.

	2024/25 £m	2023/24 £m
Interest on lease liabilities	(56)	(59)
Finance income	11	4
Finance costs	(18)	(30)
Adjusted net finance costs	(63)	(85)
Finance costs on defined benefit pension schemes	(8)	(11)
Other finance costs	(3)	7
Net finance costs on continuing operations	(74)	(89)

 

Tax
The full year adjusted effective tax rate of 24% was slightly lower than the previous year rate of 27% due to the impact of increased profits in the Nordics that are taxed at lower rates than the UK tax rate of 25%.

Taxation payments of £4m (2023/24: £7m) were lower due to reduced payments on account in the Nordics and a £1m rebate being received in the legacy Carphone Warehouse business in the Netherlands. The cash tax rate of 3% is lower than the adjusted effective rate of 24% primarily due to the tax impact of brought forward UK tax attributes (including capital allowances, future pension contributions and tax losses) and adjusting items which reduce taxes payable.

Cash flow

	2024/25 £m	2023/24 £m	Reported % change	Currency neutral % change
Operating cash flow	260	246	+6%	+7%
Capital expenditure	(77)	(48)
Adjusting items to cash flow	(33)	(48)
Free cash flow before working capital	150	150	-	+3%
Working capital	38	(2)
Network receivables	(24)	(32)
Segmental free cash flow	164	116	+41%	+45%
Cash tax paid	(4)	(7)
Cash interest paid	(11)	(27)
Free cash flow	149	82	+82%	+85%
Dividend	-	-
Purchase of own shares - share buyback	-	-
Purchase of own shares - employee benefit trust	(15)	(12)
Pension	(50)	(36)
Disposals including discontinued operations	(5)	162
Other	9	(3)
Movement in net cash	88	193	(54)%	(59)%
Opening net cash / (debt)	96	(97)	n/a
Closing net cash / (debt)	184	96	+92%	+86%

Segmental free cash flow was an inflow of £164m (2023/24: £116m) mainly due to improvements in working capital in segmental performance above. Interest and tax outflows totalled £(15)m as described above, resulting in free cash flow of £149m (2023/24: £82m).

During the prior year, the Group disposed of its Greece business, Kotsovolos, generating cash proceeds of £162 million. Final fees associated with the transaction were paid in 2024/25.

The employee benefit trust acquired £15m worth of shares to satisfy colleague share awards.

Pension contributions of £50m (2023/24: £36m) were in line with the contribution plan agreed with the pension fund trustees at the previous triennial review.

Other movements relate to currency translation differences due to changes on foreign net debt across multiple currencies.

The closing net cash position was £184m, compared to a net cash position of £96m at 27 April 2024. The average net cash for the year was £136m (2023/24: £(69)m net debt).

The Board has proposed a final dividend of 1.5p per ordinary share for the year ended 3 May 2025. The final dividend is subject to shareholder approval at the Company's Annual General Meeting in September 2025. The ex-dividend date is 28 August 2025, with a record date of 29 August 2025 and an intended final dividend payment date of 26 September 2025.

Balance sheet

	3 May 2025 Group	27 April 2024 Group
	£m	£m
Goodwill	2,251	2,237
Other fixed assets	1,090	1,156
Working capital	(195)	(163)
Net cash / (debt)	184	96
Net lease liabilities	(937)	(999)
Pension	(103)	(171)
Deferred tax	32	8
Provisions	(56)	(72)
Income tax payable	(23)	(20)
Net assets	2,243	2,072

Goodwill increased £14m as currency revaluations impacted goodwill allocated to Nordics.

Other fixed assets decreased by £(66)m, as capital expenditure was more than offset by depreciation and amortisation.

	3 May 2025 Group	27 April 2024 Group
	£m	£m
Inventory	1,037	1,034
Trade Receivables	195	195
Trade Payables	(1,186)	(1,180)
Trade working capital	46	49
Network commission receivables and contract assets	47	66
Network accrued income	230	187
Network receivables	277	253
Other Receivables	313	269
Other Payables	(820)	(743)
Derivatives	(11)	9
Working capital	(195)	(163)

At year-end, total working capital was £(195)m. Group inventory was £1,037m, broadly flat vs last year and trade payables increased by £6m to £(1,186)m. Based on average balances, stock days marginally increased to 62 (2023/24 61) while trade payable days slightly decreased to 73 (2023/24: 74).

Total network receivables increased £24m due to growth of iD Mobile.

Most of the movement in other payables was driven by strong sales in the additional trading week of FY25, driving higher accruals and contract liabilities.

Lease liabilities have reduced by £(62)m against 27 April 2024 due to the closure of stores and reduction in rents at lease renewals.

The IAS 19 accounting deficit of the defined benefit pension scheme amounted to £(103)m (27 April 2024: £(171)m). The reduction of £(68)m during the period was primarily driven by £50m of contributions and small changes in assumptions on future inflation expectations. The application of a higher discount rate was favourable for the deficit, but this was entirely offset by a lower return on assets as the asset portfolio is structured to materially hedge the scheme's funding position against movements in the discount rate.

As agreed during the last triennial valuation, pension contributions will rise to £78m per annum for the three years starting in 2025/26, with a final payment of £43m in 2028/29, when the deficit is scheduled to be closed. During this period, the Group must match shareholder distributions above £12m for 2024/25 and above £60m for 2025/26 onwards by additional contributions to the pension scheme. The triennial pension review commenced in March 2025 and is expected to conclude by the end of calendar year 2025. The Group is continuing to work proactively with the scheme trustees to agree a revised forward funding schedule that should allow pensions contributions to reduce over time.

	3 May 2025	27 April 2024	29 April 2023*
	£m	£m	£m
Net cash / (debt)	184	96	(97)
Restricted cash	(30)	(36)	(30)
Net lease liabilities	(937)	(999)	(1,228)
Pension liability	(103)	(171)	(249)
Total closing indebtedness	(886)	(1,110)	(1,604)
Less: year-end net cash / (debt)	(184)	(96)	97
Add: average net cash / (debt)	136	(69)	(96)
Total average indebtedness	(934)	(1,275)	(1,603)

 

	3 May 2025	27 April 2024	29 April 2023*
	£m	£m	£m
Operating cashflow	260	246	268
Cash payments of leasing costs	249	247	283
Operating cash flow plus cash payments of leasing	509	493	551
Bank covenant ratios
Fixed charges (cash lease costs + cash interest)	260	274	309
Fixed charge cover	1.96x	1.80x	1.78x
Net cash excluding restricted funds	154	60	(127)
Net debt leverage	(0.59)x	(0.24)x	0.47x
Net indebtedness ratios
Fixed charges (cash lease costs + cash interest + pension contributions)	310	310	387
Total indebtedness fixed charge cover	1.64x	1.59x	1.42x
Total closing indebtedness	(886)	(1,110)	(1,604)
Total indebtedness leverage	1.74x	2.25x	2.91x

*Figures not restated for the disposal of Kotsovolos as these calculations are consistent with the covenants in place at the time

At 3 May 2025 the Group had a net cash position of £184m (2023/24: net cash £96m) and average net cash for the year of £136m (2023/24: average net debt £(69)m).

During the year, the Group refreshed its revolving credit facility and now has access to a £525m facility that expires in September 2028 (with an option to extend for an additional year) with a syndicate of six banks. The covenants on the debt facilities are net debt leverage <2.5x (2024/25: (0.59)x) and fixed charge cover >1.5x (2024/25: 1.96x).

The deferred tax asset increased to £32m from £8m in the year primarily due to the partial recognition of a £23m UK deferred tax asset, following the Group's improved trading performance and outlook.

Provisions primarily relate to property, reorganisation and sales provisions. The balance decreased by £(16)m during the year due to releases for provisions related to historical regulatory matters.

Comprehensive income / Changes in equity

Total equity for the Group increased from £2,072m to £2,243m in the period, driven by profit after tax of £108m, the actuarial gain (including taxation) on the defined benefit pension scheme of £54m, £17m for the translation of overseas operations, and movements in relation to share schemes (including taxation) of £15m. This was partially offset by hedging losses of £(8)m and purchase of own shares by the EBT of £(15)m.

 

Share count 

The weighted average number of shares used for basic earnings reduced by 25m to 1,081m due to an increase in the average number of shares held by the Group EBT to satisfy colleague shareholder schemes.

The dilutive effect of share options and other incentive schemes increased as some schemes improved performance against vesting conditions.

		3 May 2025	27 April 2024
		Million	Million
Weighted average number of shares
Average shares in issue		1,133	1,133
Less average holding by Group EBT and treasury shares held by Company		(52)	(27)
For basic earnings per share		1,081	1,106
Dilutive effect of share options and other incentive schemes		51	22
For diluted earnings per share		1,132	1,128