Dixons declares itself the winner in the high street electricals battle

Dixons Retail, owner of the Currys and PC World chains, yesterday claimed victory in the battle for big-ticket festive sales.

The retailer, which runs 640 stores in the UK and Ireland, said it had outperformed its struggling rivals Argos and Comet without heavy discounting in the Christmas trading period.

Across the group, which also includes stores in Greece, Italy and the Nordic nations, sales at outlets open for more than a year fell 5 per cent in the 12 weeks to 7 January.

That was broadly in line with City forecasts and compares with a decrease of 3 per cent in the second quarter.

In the UK, like-for-like sales fell 7 per cent, although gross margins were up by 0.4 percentage points.

The firm has also seen a mini-boom in UK trading since the anniversary of the VAT sales tax rise on 4 January, with like-for-like sales up 23 per cent over the ten days to 14 January.

Chief executive John Browett said: “We were ahead [of our rivals]. You can see it in some of the competitors’ numbers. We had an amazing run on tablets, readers, iPads and Kindles.”

Kesa Electricals, which is selling Comet, is scheduled to update on trading tomorrow. Last week, Home Retail said a weak consumer electronics market accounted for two thirds of an 8.8 per cent fall in like-for-like sales at its Argos business.

Dixons said it had outperformed rivals with the help of strong online trading, demand for its “click and collect” service and its new “Knowhow” offering which sees it provide expertise to help customers install new technology.