British retailer Halfords Group expects demand for cycling and consumer tyres to be weak this fiscal year as consumers stung by inflation limit purchases of non-essential goods, it said on Thursday.
Halfords’s costs have also risen and it expects freight costs to be £4 million to £7 million higher than it foresaw at the start of the year.It predicted a negative impact until the end of the current fiscal year next April, but said the impact, which it considered to be industrywide, was not long term. Inflation in Britain has eased, according to the latest official figures.
For the reporting period, underlying pretax profit from total operations came in at £36.1 million , down from the £44.2 million it logged last year.