JD Sports retains revenue and profit in spite of covid and Brexit
Sports retail group JD Sports has published its full-year results for the 12 months ending January 30, 2021.
Its revenues were up by 0.9% to a little under £6.2 billion, while its pre-tax profit was down by 7% to £324 million.
It said that this “significant retention of sales and profitability” through an unprecedented period of global uncertainty and multiple periods of temporary store closures reflected the strength of the JD brand, the relevance of its product offer to consumers, the agility of the “multichannel eco-system” it has built up over a number of years and the flexibility of its infrastructure.
It also said that a programme of converting stores formerly run by The Finish Line in the US to JD Sports stores had gone well. The group acquired The Finish Line in 2018. By the end of this most recent business year, it had converted 49 The Finish Line stores into JD Sports stores.
On announcing the results, executive chairman, Peter Cowgill, said the covid-19 pandemic and the UK’s formal exit from the European Union had presented challenges that had “severely tested all aspects of our business”. But he said the group remained confident of being well placed to benefit from the opportunities that will arise in the coming months.
