Halfords continues to grow bicycle sales and expects Olympic boom

Bicycles continue to be one of the star performers at Halfords, which has this morning revealed strong sales growth in the category during the final three months of its 2011/12 financial year in an update on trading to the City. The company, which is Britain's biggest bike retailer, is also looking forward to a further boom in sales of bikes due to this summer's Olympics.

Like-for-like figures - based on sales from stores in the UK and Ireland that have been trading for more than 365 days and which therefore provide an accurate year-on-year picture of trading - show that revenue from cycling rose by 5.7 per cent in the three months to 30 March 2012, which the company said was attributable to a "strong performances in Premium and Children's Bikes."

Looking ahead, the Redditch-based company said: "We also anticipate a particularly buoyant, albeit competitive, cycling market this year given the strong interest in Team GB at the Olympics, and our trading plans reflect the intention to maintain our market-leading position."

The performance in bicycles helped Halfords' leisure segment, of which the category forms part, post like-for-like revenue growth of 2.2 per cent during the quarter. Elsewhere in the business, again on a like-for-like basis, Halfords Autocentres saw revenue rise by 8.2 per cent and car maintenance was up 3.1 per cent, but revenue from car enancement plunged by 14.5 per cent. Total UK and Republic of Ireland like-for-like revenue was down by 2.3 per cent for the period.