Currys & PC World: £30m loss

DSG International – owner of Currys and PC World – recorded a loss of £29.8 million for the last six months.

As recession fears and the credit crunch deter shoppers – with MFI and Woolworths both calling in the administrators this week – DSG reported like-for-like sales were down seven per cent and it was offering no dividend.

Total sales rose three per cent to £3,468 million.

Profits were hit as Currys saw fewer shoppers and the firm looked to clear older stock and cut prices on TVs to match internet prices.

Sales at PC World were down ten per cent, but this was in part blamed on the clearance of laptop overstocks last year that drove high sales.

Online sales at PIXmania and Dixons.co.uk were up nine per cent.

The pre-tax loss of £29.8 million compared with a profit last year of £52.4 million.

Looking forward to Christmas and 2009, DSG stated the outlook was "uncertain".

John Browett, DSG chief executive, said: "We are focused first on trading through the current tough economic environment in which we are prioritising cash generation as well as tightly managing stock, money margins and costs."

He added the firm was working on its new format superstores and Curry.digital stores, where some stores were reporting 25 per cent higher sales than the rest of the group.

At 10:21 GMT the DGS share price was down 5.36 per cent to 13.25p. A year ago it was over 110p.