Pets at Home Group PLC (LSE:PETS) expects full-year profits will be at the top end of the range of analysts’ expectations after a strong first half.
The retailer, which has benefited from the urge of many to acquire a pet to help them through lockdown, saw revenue rise 22.2% on a like-for-like basis in the 28 weeks to 7 October compared to the same period of 2020. Compared to the same (pre-pandemic) period of 2019, like-for-like sales were up 28.6%.
The company said that strong growth in pet ownership continues, reflected in the elevated level of customer registrations across its Puppy and Kitten club, and the performance across its retail and veterinary operations continues to be “robust”, although management added the caveat about widely reported challenges in the near-term operating environment relating to supply, logistics and labour availability.
Pets at Home said it was not immune to the supply chain problems but noted that the vast majority of its product range is sourced domestically on lead times.
The retailer said it is making good progress in its programme of rent reductions and continues to work closely with its long-term suppliers and partners to mitigate inflationary pressures across the supply chain.
“Looking further ahead, the stronger than expected and continuing growth in the pet population over the past eighteen months, combined with continued customer themes of pet humanisation, premiumisation and renewal, is increasing the size of our market and scale of the opportunity facing us. In conjunction with the clear advantages of our omnichannel model in consistently taking market share by providing everything a pet owner needs through the full lifetime of their pet, we now see a pathway to £2.3bn of customer revenue across our business over the medium term,” the FTSE 250 company said.
“Our business has never been more robust,” declared Peter Pritchard, the group’s chief executive officer.
“Our pet care strategy continues to deliver, we continue to take market share and improve spend per customer and the benefits of our investment in capacity and capability are really starting to deliver.
“Notwithstanding some near-term, industry-wide challenges, we continue to grow ahead of our plans and, based on trading year to date, we are on track to report a record year of sales and profit growth,” he added.
Shares in Pets at home were up 2.0% at 467.2p.