Currys H2 2026 Earnings Report

Currys EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 13.40
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Currys Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Currys Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2026
• Date: 7/2/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, July 2, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:30AM ET

Currys (LON:CURY) is a leading omnichannel retailer of technology products and services, operating online and through over 800 stores in 8 countries. We Help Everyone Enjoy Amazing Technology, however they choose to shop with us. In the UK & Ireland we trade as Currys; in the Nordics under the Elkjøp brand and as Kotsovolos in Greece. In each of these markets we are the market leader, employing 28,000 capable and committed colleagues. Our full range of services and support makes it easy for our customers to discover, choose, afford and enjoy the right technology for them, throughout their lives. The Group’s operations include state-of-the-art repair facilities in Newark, UK, a sourcing office in Hong Kong and an extensive distribution network, enabling fast and efficient delivery to stores and homes. Our vision, we help everyone enjoy amazing technology, has a powerful social purpose at its heart. We believe in the power of technology to improve lives, help people stay connected, productive, healthy, and entertained. We’re here to help everyone enjoy those benefits and with our scale and expertise, we are uniquely placed to do so. We’re a leader in giving technology a longer life through repair, recycling and reuse. We’re reducing our impact on the environment in our operations and our wider value chain and we will achieve net zero emissions by 2040. We offer customers products that help them save energy, reduce waste and save water, and we partner with charitable organisations to bring the benefits of amazing technology to those who might otherwise be excluded.

Currys H2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Currys reported a solid FY result, with like-for-like sales up 4%, profit before tax up 18% to GBP 191 million, free cash flow of GBP 157 million, and net cash of GBP 176 million. Adjusted EPS rose 19%, and the board proposed a double dividend versus last year.
• Positive Sentiment: The U.K. and Ireland business delivered another year of growth, with like-for-like sales up 3% and recurring service revenue up 7%. Management said the segment held EBIT margin at 2.9% despite wage and national insurance headwinds.
• Positive Sentiment: The Nordics were even stronger, with like-for-like sales up 6%, recurring services revenue up 8%, and adjusted EBIT up 26%. Management highlighted that a stronger NOK amplified the region’s profit improvement in GBP terms.
• Positive Sentiment: Cash generation remained a major strength, helped by disciplined CapEx, improved working capital, and the final large pension contribution as the deficit nears zero. The company also returned cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks and said future pension payments should drop sharply.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management reiterated its at least 3% EBIT margin target and said current trading has started the year “very solidly,” with consensus expectations still seen as achievable. The company also flagged elevated macro uncertainty, possible chip-cost inflation, and a step-up in CapEx to support growth.

Presentation

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Good morning, everybody. We're pretty proud of the results that we're going to present today. What they show is a strong and strengthening performance by the group. It is founded in the Nordics by us making sure that we're the beneficiary of a rapidly recovering market in the U.K., another year of excellent and strengthening performance. All this comes, as you'll see today, from a strategy that we've followed consistently and that we believe is clearly working. There is a lot more left in the tank. We're going to cover that today as well, not least under new leadership, and you'll be in good hands with Fredrik and his world-class team, one of whom I will hand over to now.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Thank you, Alex. Good morning, everyone. Let me start with some highlights. As you will have seen for last year, we had good top-line growth, up 4% on a like-for-like basis. That helped us grow our profit before tax to GBP 191 million, up 18% year-on-year. In turn, that drove our free cash flow to GBP 157 million, meaning we finished the year with GBP 176 million of net cash. Our adjusted earnings per share increased by 19% to GBP 0.134. Today we're proposing a full year dividend of GBP 0.03, which is double the level of last year. Starting at the top line, our sales continue to improve.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Within the U.K., as you can see, it's the second year in a row that we've enjoyed like-for-like growth and market share growth. In the Nordics, a spectacular year last year, up 6% overall and double-digit growth over the peak period. Going into each of our two markets, starting off with the U.K. and Ireland, as I said, strong top-line growth, up 3% on a like-for-like basis in the U.K. I'm pleased to say that our most important sales, our recurring service revenue, increased by even more, at 7%.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

That helped us drive our adjusted EBIT margins up by GBP 5 million-GBP 158 million, keeping our EBIT margin percent flat at 2.9%. Operating cash flows increased by GBP 6 million, and our segmental free cash flow increased by GBP 10 million. That's despite the fact that we invested GBP 27 million in working capital to drive our iD Mobile proposition forward. In terms of our EBIT margin, as I said, overall flat at 2.9%.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Within that, our gross margin was up by 20 basis points. That's the fourth year in a row that we've seen our gross margin step forward, while our operating expense ratio declined by 20 basis points. In terms of the drivers of gross margin, no surprises. Exactly the same activity in terms of solution selling, driving services, and not chasing less profitable sales. That was critical because it allowed us to offset a big chunk of the government-imposed headwinds. You might remember we called out last year GBP 32 million of national insurance and living wage headwinds, and certainly those that appear within gross margin within our supply chain and service we've been able to offset.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

From an operating expense to sales ratio, as I say, that went backwards by 20 basis points. The cause, the same thing. The living wage, national insurance impact on our store colleagues and on our central overheads. Although we achieved significant cost savings, it wasn't enough to offset those headwinds. Moving on to the Nordics. Our Nordics performance was even stronger. Like-for-like, as I've already described, was +6%, so very strong. Again, our recurring services revenue was up 8%. That drove our adjusted EBIT within the Nordics up by 26%, and our adjusted EBIT margins increased by 40 basis points. Our operating cash flow also increased by 26%, and our segmental free cash flow improved by GBP 4 million.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

In terms of our EBIT margin in the Nordics, as I said, a 40 basis points improvement overall. If you were to break that down, there's a 60 basis points backward step within our gross margin and 100 basis points improvement within our operating expenses. It's really important to drill into this gross margin, because on the face of it might look like we were losing some of the disciplines that are hard-won in terms of focused on margin.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

That isn't the case. Pretty much all of that 60 basis points, in fact, 50 basis points of the 60 basis points was caused by foreign exchange. Our Nordic business buys pretty much all of their products in euros and dollars. Our policy is that our Nordic business forward hedge FX on 80% of those purchases up to six months in advance. What we saw over the course of the last year was an incredible strengthening of the NOK, which meant that pretty much all of those contracts were underwater.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

IFRS 9 requires us to post that loss through the same line as the underlying asset, which is why there was a big negative in gross margin. In terms of operating expenses, the Nordics, again, did a fabulous job at offsetting all inflation with cost savings. On a local currency basis, the costs in our Nordic business were broadly flat, which means we've achieved that given significant top-line growth, which means that operational leverage improved the ratio, as you can see. This is a slide that we've shown the last couple of presentations, and we've used it to demonstrate, number one, the progress we're making within our Nordic business on progression on EBIT margin.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

The other reason this slide has been important the last couple of years has been the weakness of the NOK, and therefore the fact that at a local basis we've seen good progression in profit, but that's looked understated when you've looked at it from a GBP perspective. The great news in the year that's just finished is that not only has local profits increased, but with the strengthening of the NOK, we've had a double whammy. A really, really good step forward within Nordic profits. Moving on to cash. Another great year for free cash flow that stepped forward by GBP 8 million-GBP 157 million. You can see the vast majority of that came through operating cash flow, so higher cash profit up GBP 34 million.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Our CapEx was broadly flat at GBP 79 million as we've maintained the strong discipline, making sure that every pound of CapEx we spend is generating a good return. Adjusting items, also flat. These adjusting items, as you know, are focused on non-operating properties and also restructuring costs. The year that we're presenting is the final year where the number will be this large, going forward, and I'll show you shortly, we expect that number to be significantly lower. Cash tax is GBP 7 million. That is a surprisingly low number given our profits, the explanation is brought forward losses. Cash interest increased slightly, that's because of lower average cash holdings during the year.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Finally, working capital. Working capital was an outflow of GBP 3 million in the year, again, let me repeat what I said earlier. That's despite the fact that we invested GBP 27 million of working capital growing our iD Mobile business. Outside of that, actually, our working capital improved by GBP 24 million through improving stock turns, management of payment days, and reducing debt. What did we do with GBP 157 million? Well, we made GBP 82 million contribution to the pension scheme.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

This was the last big payment to the pension scheme as the deficit approaches GBP 0. I'll show you shortly that that number going forward will be significantly lower. We made GBP 74 million of payments to shareholders with GBP 24 million of dividend and GBP 50 million of share buyback. We also made GBP 23 million of buyback for our employee benefit trust. This is to pay for the long-term incentive and other colleague share awards. Overall, we finished the year with GBP 176 million of cash. You'll recognize this slide.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

This reflects the strength of our balance sheet, we have continued to improve the position. This brings together our level of debt and the pension deficit. You can see as our pension deficit is now just GBP 6 million, it means that we are in a net cash position of GBP 170 million. Moving on to outlook. Obviously, it's very early in the year, during the first couple of periods, we're pleased to say that our trading has been very solid. Although there remains macro uncertainty, the group is comfortable that we're going to achieve market consensus. Some headline numbers to help with your modeling. We expect total interest expense to be broadly flat year-on-year between GBP 60 million-GBP 65 million.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

We're calling out an increase in capital expenditure, an extra GBP 20 million-GBP 95 million. Again, we won't be giving up any of those disciplines in terms of the quality of that CapEx. I reflected earlier that we expect our exceptional cash flows to fall significantly, we're calling that going from GBP 35 million down to GBP 15 million in this new financial year. The annual pension contribution contractually drops from GBP 82 million down to GBP 13 million.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

We're expecting to make GBP 85 million returns to shareholders with the higher cash dividend costing GBP 35 million and repeating the share buyback, a further GBP 50 million of buyback. You'll see that those two combined add up to GBP 85 million. Part of the contract we have with our pension scheme is any contributions over GBP 80 million, we have to match them. That's why we're calling out an extra GBP 5 million of pension payments during the course of this year.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

That will fall off future payments towards the end of that contract period. In terms of our medium-term objectives, no change. Our target is to get to at least 3% EBIT margins. As you can see, the U.K. has delivered 2.9% again, so we are virtually there. From a Nordic perspective, good progression now for three years in a row and moving back to where we were pre-pandemic. Finally, just worth touching on our capital allocation priorities, which at a headline level are unchanged. We will continue to maintain a prudent balance sheet with a year-end net cash of at least GBP 100 million.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

We will pay the required pension contribution, and as I say, that is contracted now at a much, much lower number. Invest to grow in the business, to grow profits and grow cash flow. As I showed you, our expectation is that that CapEx number will be less than GBP 100 million, but we're not constrained by that. If we see opportunities for us to invest to be able to drive profitable or cash flow accretive activity that's in line with our investment criteria, we will do that.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

We'll also look at M&A opportunities, infill M&A opportunities, to support and deliver upside to some of our key growth areas. Pay and grow our ordinary dividend. As you saw, we are proposing a GBP 0.04 total dividend, which equates to a 4.5x cover. Today we're calling out that we expect to reduce that to 4x cover in 2026, 2027. Finally, surplus cash will be returned to shareholders, as I say, with calling out GBP 50 million of new buybacks that will start from today. That's from me. Let me hand back to Alex.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Thanks, Bruce. The story today is one of Currys improving its trajectory on every dimension that matters, whether we're talking about the U.K. or the Nordics, on colleague, customer, or financial metrics, on sales, market share, margin, cost efficiency, cash conversion, the health of the balance sheet, electrical and mobile products and services. On every dimension that you care to mention, the trajectory is good and is improving. There's one in particular I want to draw out and emphasize up front today, which is the top-line growth and the fact that we've been able to return this business without much help from the market to sustainable top-line growth. In the U.K., the picture you see here is one of us almost trebling the total accessible market that we face.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We have been able to continue to eke out share improvements in our core market, 60 basis points of growth to show for that. We've been growing this market, as I say. Growing it in terms of who we sell to, small to medium-size enterprises as well as to consumers, as well as what we sell, whether it's the new and emerging categories and solutions and services. These are areas that are adjacent, where we've got a great deal or indeed all of what it takes to win, where we start with a lower market share and therefore have accordingly higher headroom for growth. Growing we are, as you see.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

In all of these areas that we flagged for growth, we are growing at healthy double digits, and it's making a material contribution to the strong and strengthening performance that we've seen today, both in the U.K. and also in the Nordics. Let's start with what we sell, the new and the growth categories that we're facing. Part of that is new and emerging tech coming from our core categories. Whether it's wearables like the Oura Ring, or whether it's glasses like the Meta or robots, robot vacuums are flying off the shelves, that's all going well.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

It's also adjacent categories, whether it's e-mobility or pet tech, seasonal and impulse categories that allow us to take full advantage of the traffic coming into our sites and our stores. Batteries, sounds unglamorous, but a really important contributor for us. In the Nordics, of course, we have a strong and strengthening kitchens business as well. All of these are in healthy growth, 50%+, and as I say, making a material contribution to the sales and the share growth that you've seen, as is our progress in B2B. Small to medium-sized businesses share many of the characteristics of our core consumers.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Their needs are very similar and they have, in most cases, the same products, suppliers, channels, services and solutions, supply chain and service operations. We can lean on the core machine in order to serve this adjacent market. What we do need that's slightly different, we have built, whether it's leadership, whether it's specialism in our specialist colleagues in our stores, a tweaked online customer experience or account management skills.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Those we have built and we have the strong growth to show for it, 16% up off a big base in the Nordics, 20% up in the U.K. All of this gives us confidence to commit to significant further growth. We're going to at least double the size of the U.K. business in B2B over the next three years. Off a bigger base, the Nordics will grow by at least 40% over the next four. Big and growing in B2B. That's one of the reasons these large accessible sources of new growth where we start with lower headroom, but we've got every right to win, and we're showing strong double-digit growth as proof of that.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

That's one of the reasons to be confident in the future. There are many others. Let's zoom back out to the strategy that we've been following in recent years, a strategy that we believe is clearly working. It starts with the customer. That customer finds the stuff that we sell, tech, exciting, sure, but confusing and expensive, and they need help. They need help to discover, choose, afford, and enjoy to the full that technology through the life. Those are needs that we, as the number one, the specialist, the omni-channel at scale, and the services provider as well as a retailer, we at Currys are best equipped to provide.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We are. We do that by starting with the colleagues. It's very difficult for the experience of the customer to be better than that of the colleague in our space. We want colleagues who know what they're doing and who want to be here. They in turn make us easy to shop for customers. On those foundations, we get more customers to want to keep coming back, customers for life, and that allows us to grow profits and cash.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

This strategy has seen us maintain our number one spot in all the markets that we operate in. We had a bit of a dip, 30 basis points market share decline in the Nordics in the year just passed, but off a very high base, still 28% and way larger than the number two. In the U.K., we saw a significant step forward, 600 basis points of market share improvement in the U.K. That actually understates our progress. If you look on the left-hand side here, there's the core market in the, I don't know, orangey red color.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Above that, there's the sales that we report as part of our core market, so-called Currys and core market sales. Our like-for-likes are higher still, as you see. Our market share gains, our stated market share gains, understate the true performance improvement of the business because so much of our growth, as we've talked about, is coming from outside of our core areas, coming from new areas. Good, healthy, sustainable top-line growth. I mentioned capable and committed colleagues. It all starts with them, so it's good that we've seen another good year of progress on colleague engagement, up one in both of our markets.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

In the U.K., we're in the top 3% now of companies worldwide when it comes to colleague engagement. That's not just our opinion, it's others as well. We've gone from relatively low to top of all 18 major U.K. retailers on Glassdoor as the best place to work, first retailer to crack 4.0 and first time out in "The Sunday Times" Best Places to Work, we came top amongst U.K. retailers. This has real commercial value. It's one of the drivers of improved customer satisfaction as well. Happy colleagues make for happy customers. As you see, another year of progress.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

The Nordics storming ahead to another couple of points to 65 on NPS, which is creating some healthy internal competition in the group as U.K. colleagues are not happy to be 9 points lagging at 56. Still, good progress in the U.K., 700 basis points of improvement year on four. Again, not just our measures, but Trustpilot, the external measure you can all track, has seen us in the last five years go from poor to excellent, from 2.7%-4.4%. Good progress on customer satisfaction as well. Happy colleagues and happy customers then allow us to make us easier to shop for our customers, too.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

That starts with retail fundamentals. Every retailer, to be successful, would be well advised to pay attention to having the right range, making sure it's available when the customer wants to buy it, having the right price, and having an easy experience in the channels and after the sale. That we've worked on really hard and we've talked before about range areas like new categories and about an easy customer experience. We've talked before about how we're showing customer satisfaction improvements at every stage of the journey.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Today, I want to focus on availability. Availability, as you know, is the single biggest driver of lost sales for a retailer. If you're not available, the customer can't buy it. Conversely, if you improve availability, everything else being equal, you will always drive improved sales. Now, Currys started from a high and improving level of availability, but we saw an opportunity for improvement. We saw up to 1/3 of customers coming into our stores and leaving, intending to buy, but leaving empty-handed, in large part because of availability constraints and something like 28% of our products making it to the store were not making it to the shelf.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Hence a big focus on on-shelf availability over the past year. That's been better analytics and better process at the heart of that. Better analytics, we've got better at zeroing in on so-called AAA product, our highest priority product, which is fastest moving, which is highest selling, and highest margin for us. The most important product for the customer and for us, we've prioritized for ranging and availability. Better process as well.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We've gone from well-meaning but not helpful covering of gaps in the store shelves. Colleagues have had focused on making us look as if we had better availability by covering up any gaps. That covered up real gaps in availability. We've moved from making us look available to actually being available by a focus on better replenishment, in particular, the daily gap scanning process. All of this has had happy consequences with an over 60% improvement in on-shelf availability in the pilot stores.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Some really good improvements off an already strong base when it comes to availability. Availability, by the way, matters particularly in store. It matters particularly for when the customer wants something urgently, or whether they're picking it up on order and collect. Stores obviously part of an omni-channel model that we believe gives us a priceless advantage in this market. The customers prefer to shop through both. Still, over 60% of customer journeys involve a store purchase. We have both channels at scale in ways that no competitor has, it's on us to make the most of that.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

The fact that customers do prefer omni-channel is also backed up on the right-hand side here. Our omni-channel sales, for example, online, in store, or order and collect, our omni-channel sales are growing faster than our sales overall. Grew 9% in the U.K., up to fully 1/3 of our sales in the last year. This is a real advantage that we've got that we intend to continue making more of. Omni-channel includes both stores and online, and we've invested heavily in the year just passed and will continue to invest in improving both channels.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

In stores, its tools and processes have improved. Processes like Sales Floor Leader, which has connected more customers with the right colleague faster, but better tools like headsets that get the right colleague to the right customer faster and also improve security, and tools like electronic shelf edge labeling, a Nordics idea that we copied with pride in the U.K. and is now rolled out to all U.K. stores, with good consequences. It means a better customer experience. It allows more nimble pricing. It takes away cost.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

I mean, a significant multimillion pound benefit per annum from that. I think it took out 138,000 hours of the colleagues' most hated task, which is paper ticketing, which makes colleagues happier and makes us happier as well. All of these improvements that we're making in our stores are driving good consequences for market share. So another good year for conversion, 50 basis points up overall weighted across the group in stores and another good year in driving sales growth and market share gains in our stores.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Not just stores where we're investing, we're also investing online, and we'll continue to make the improvements that we need there, whether it's search, navigation, filtering, product comparison, a more powerful tool deployed there, more reviews, better recommendations, a faster checkout, more payment options, better delivery options and performance. All of these things have stepped on in the year just passed with good consequences, 40 basis points up for online conversion. Worth saying, in both online and stores, we gained market share last year, we're big and improving online.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

That makes us easy to shop, on those strong foundations, we can in turn build more customers for life, customers who want to keep coming back to shop again and again at Currys. Building stickier and more valuable customer relationships, as we want to do, does start with knowing those customers, data, in other words. We've had another year of big advances here. Another step on in Nordics customer club numbers, the precise numbers to be confirmed, but we've got a very large consented base of customers in the Nordics now with the top tech stack that we have there and the data and analytics capabilities.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

This is now enabling us to start personalization at scale. That's pretty exciting, we should get to at least 5% of Nordic sales over the next three years driven by personalization at scale. The more personalized you are in your appeal to customers, the more relevant you are, the more you will sell. Same true in the U.K., where we've got some pretty big consented customer bases in the U.K. too, whether it's the 2.6 million iD customers, 2.7 million in credit, 8.7 million perks members, or 11.6 million care and repair customers.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We got large data sets of consented customers, we have now brought them together. The fabled single customer view is now a reality. We can now much more easily segment and target customers based off who they are, what they've bought, when and how they bought it, their attitudes, and their behaviors. We can do things that the marketing techies talk about, building custom audiences, which is basically taking these segments cut any which way of customers, pushing them out to the ad platforms in minutes, whereas previously it would take days and weeks if it was possible at all.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

This allows for much greater marketing efficiency and effectiveness. It also, by the way, enables significantly better third-party monetization. Retail media is still a big opportunity largely ahead of this business, but we've got the foundations in place now to make something pretty interesting of it. It's with that data, it's with those foundations of knowing our customers better, that we're able to provide better, more targeted solutions and services to those customers. We do want to continue providing more complete solutions to customers.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

When we sell the customer everything they need, products, accessories, services, the customer's happier because they're getting everything they need, and they're getting good value for money if they buy it all at once. We're happier too, because it's a significantly more valuable sale. It's good that adoption of solutions is growing. It's more than doubled in both markets. We had a dip in the Nordics last year. That's due to an FY 2025, an unsustainable spike in screen protection sales, which we are unable to sustain into 2026.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Still, it's healthy long-term growth trajectory, more than doubled the rate of adoption in the Nordics, just as we have in the U.K., to over 40% and 43% and counting. These numbers look great but there is more in the tank. To take the U.K. example, 43% looks like a lot. If you look at complete solutions, if you look at the percentage of sales where we've sold the customer literally everything that's relevant that they could have bought, that's 0.3% of sales. There is a lot.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

By the way, that's very valuable because those complete solutions come at 8x the margin of a product-only sale. There's a lot of value still on the table here at selling more complete solutions, but we should draw comfort from the rate of progress. Important to complete solutions are the services that we offer to customers that allow them to get the most out of their technology, to enjoy it to the full. We've had another good year of growth on those, starting with the credit that helps customers afford sometimes expensive technology.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Credit customers, our credit customers are happier, 12 points higher NPS, and we're happier when customers use flexpay as well. They spend more, they come back and shop more frequently, and they have twice the lifetime value of a non-credit customer. They also, by the way, make a meaningful and helpful double-digit straight-to-the-bottom-line profit contribution from commissions, and also from cost avoidance. Every time a customer uses flexpay, they're not using a credit card. It means that we avoid that commission expense, making a meaningful double-digit million-pound profit contribution in its own right, and being a significant enabler of retail sales.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Credit makes everyone happy, it's good when we grow it, as we are. As you can see here, healthy growth in credit sales and in credit numbers of customers. The adoption rate now is not far short of 24%. Nearly getting on for a quarter of Currys sales are sold on our own flexpay product. We've shown great growth in recent years. Much more to come. We're not happy with it starting with a two. Why should we be? That is the credit that helps customers afford technology that is in growth, and then helping them get started with their technology, whether it is set-up, data transfer, or installation, which is illustrated on this slide here.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

That is all nicely in growth as well. 46% getting on for of big box sales in the Nordics are installed, which is good for the customers and good for us because it is a profitable service. Catching up in the U.K., still that number is too low. It is nice that we have grown 700 basis points of adoption on installation over recent years, there is still a lot more in the tank on that, as you see. The same with connectivity. Another good year, 18% up, I think, in subscriber numbers for iD Mobile in the year just passed, up to 2.6 million and counting, driven by very high levels of adoption of our app, which is going down well with customers.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

You see that in the Trustpilot scores, which are very high for iD. Really good source of sustainable free cash flow and profitability for us is iD, there is a lot more in the tank for that, too. Likewise, finally, for repairs. Arguably the single most important service for customers. It gives their product longer life. It is good for their pocket, it is good for the planet, and it is good for our profits, too. It is good that it is in growth, as you see here, it is. Important here, there is a moat around this business. Repairing at this sort of scale leans on capabilities that we have and that no one else is realistically ever going to develop.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Capabilities like Europe's largest technology repair center in Newark, with over 1,000 colleagues repairing, or processing, getting on for 3 million devices a year. Good growth across all of the services that power our solutions. They have another benefit, too, is that to a large extent, those revenues are recurring. We have now gone over 30%, three zero, of our U.K. revenues that are recurring, building welcome stabilizers into the P&L and making us still less dependent on the vagaries of the U.K. consumer. Nice progress, still significantly further to go.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

That is on making us easier to shop for customers and then building more customers for life on the back of that. All of this, of course, is in service of more sustainable profit and free cash flow growth. We have talked in the past about, Bruce just mentioned, the margin and the cost disciplines that have been so important to us, they are. We are not going to relax on the margin disciplines that see us monetize an ever-improving customer experience, that keep our supply chain and service operations costs down, that make us focus on end-to-end profitability. No let-up on any of that.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Likewise, we have heard about top-line growth earlier on costs, there is going to be no let-up on any of that either. I touched on the customer and the colleague benefits of electronic shelf-edge labeling. Let us not forget the financial benefits. GBP 6 million a year saved from those 138,000 hours. Right first time, which is, again, good for customers when we turn up on time with the right stuff and can install it there and then, but it's also good for Currys because we avoid the cost of rework. A GBP 6 million a year cost benefit there.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

The cloud migration that we've undergone in the U.K., painful at times, but worth it because it's getting to us to an over GBP 10 million a year annual cost benefit. Plenty to go for on costs as we continue the disciplines there, and that's another good reason to believe in a sustainable future for this business. As is this man behind me. I've worked with Fredrik very closely for the past eight years. He's an outstanding leader and colleague.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

He's got a great track record built up over many roles in many years, most recently in leading the quite remarkable transformation in fortunes in our Nordics business over the past three years, where he's more than trebled profits. I commend him to you, and you'll get to know him really well. You will see what I've come to see is the quality that he brings to the role. Of course, he's got a world-class team to join, too. Between him and that world-class team, I've no doubt that we will be able to continue on the trajectory that we're on.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

A trajectory, let's not forget, that is seeing this business progress on every measure that matters, whether it's colleague, customer, or financial, top or bottom line, products or services, electrical or mobile, U.K. or Nordics. This business is tracking well, and it's on Fredrik and his world-class team to make sure that we maintain and accelerate that trajectory. Thank you very much. With that, I think Dan is going to compere your questions.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Yeah. Thank you. Good morning, all. Now time for questions. If you raise your hand, we'll bring a mic to you, and if we could limit it to two questions per analyst. We can always come back around if that is not enough. Maybe start with Monique over here. There you go.

[Analyst]

Excellent. Thank you very much for taking my questions, and thanks, Alex, for your work over the years. You'll be missed. The first question I just had is whether we could touch a bit on the U.K. competitive environment, conscious that JD's launched Joybuy and they have plans obviously to acquire someone else in the space, although not directly competing from a geographic perspective at the moment. Do you think it's going to be hard to eke out another 60 basis points of market share gains in the U.K. this year?

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We fully expect JD to become a serious competitor. We try to exist in a state of healthy paranoia, which I think is appropriate for a viciously competitive market like ours. Monique, this is nothing new. We've had Amazon snapping at our heels as the number two in this market for the last 30 years, trying to take our slot. They're no slouches, and here we still are, market leader, number one, and extending our lead and showing these strong and strengthening results that we're posting today. Of course, we'll take every competitor seriously. There's nothing new in a hyper-competitive market.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

The advantages that we've got, and with plenty more in the tank to build on those, advantages that stem from having the best colleagues who are most engaged, building more satisfaction in our customer base, helping those customers be ever easier to shop how they want to shop, omni-channel, which nobody else, Joybuy or anyone else, has got at scale, and helping them with the solutions that are valuable to the customer as well as to us, that nobody else can provide. If we carry on doing what we're doing and we stick with a strategy that's working and continue to build on that, I think it's for competitors to worry about Currys rather than the other way around.

[Analyst]

Excellent. The second question might be more for Bruce. Just trying to understand, conscious no guidance being given at the moment, but just any moving parts you can give us on gross margin evolution over the year, particularly when we think about the potential for chip shortages and what that might mean for pricing?

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Sorry, you're talking about going forward, yeah?

[Analyst]

Going forward, yeah.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Yeah. As you say, we're not giving any guidance going forward. Maybe a couple of points that we've made in the past. First of all, in terms of headwinds, which impact gross margin as well as bottom line. We talked about the GBP 32 million of headwinds from the government last year. That equivalent number in the year ahead is just GBP 5 million. It's GBP 5 million. It's not just GBP 5 million, it's GBP 5 million, within a living wage of roughly GBP 10, and we get a small rates improvement. That's going to help us. I guess the other key point is we're not going to give up any of the disciplines we've had in terms of not chasing less profitable sales and all of the key drivers of margin that Alex has just been talking about.

[Analyst]

Anything to touch on in relation to pricing dynamics, potential chip shortages?

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

On chips, probably the first thing to say is clearly it's a real thing. It's in the press every day, it's something that we anticipated carefully. If you look on our balance sheet, you will see that our stock is GBP 140 million higher than it was the year before. That GBP 140 million across both U.K. and Nordics relates, number one, to some buy forwards on laptops and mobile to get ahead of that. As Alex said, we've probably got enough stock to see us through to September, through to the back-to-school period. That will deal with the first half. We're also driving availability.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

You heard Alex talk about our AAA products, clearly some of the increase in stock is focused around higher rates of sale. Through that investment, I guess you could look at it two ways. As a minimum, we've got the stock, we're able to deliver. If you are being glass half full, you would say we're probably going to be one of the few retailers that got the amount of stock we've got. We bought it at a lower price. At the higher price, if prices do go up, more customers are likely to shop at Currys than elsewhere because of the higher ticket price, also we'll be able to sell more services. There are reasons to be optimistic on something that is a challenge, definitely.

[Analyst]

Thank you.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thanks, Monique. Could we go down to John in the white shirt?

[John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thank you. John Stevenson, Peel Hunt. You have two questions. Can I start with cash, actually? We talked about this before. You're generating cash on this year's numbers. You're sat well ahead of your GBP 100 million requirement. I appreciate it gives optionality. What would stop you basically redeploying another buyback as we come into the half year? What are the reasons not to do that? As the year progresses, it feels like you've got plenty of scope to go further. Second question, just on mentioning the data in the CRM. Are these improvements actually being employed now to the extent there's a discernible improvement in your marketing efficiency and driving frequency and share of wallet? Can you maybe talk about that?

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

If I take the second part first-

[John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Yeah.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

...then, Bruce, you can take the first. Not materially is the short answer. When we talk about up to 5% of Nordic sales, we expect to be personalization driven within the next three years. That's from a negligible base today. All of the foundations are now in place. We're not talking about we're going to develop a single customer view, which it's arguably taken us a little time to get here, but we've done it. It's there. It's ready to be used. In that sense, it's upside to come.

[John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thank you.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Thank you, John. In terms of our cash, I think the first thing to say is we're very comfortable with the strength of our balance sheet. Given the uncertainty at macro level, political level, having a stronger balance sheet is clearly better than having a weaker balance sheet. I'd remind you that the GBP 100 million that we talk about in terms of a cash number isn't a target, it's a base. We will have at least GBP 100 million of cash within the business to protect us against downside risk. As you correctly reflected, one of the reasons that we're comfortable holding that level of cash is to give us that optionality, to give us a series of choices.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

If further opportunities come up to invest, we talked about GBP 95 million of CapEx in the year ahead. If further opportunities came to give us a really solid return, we would spend more than that. M&A is another great opportunity. You saw those TAM areas that Alex talked about in terms of mobile services, B2B, new categories. If there was an opportunity to do some small infill acquisitions that gave us new capabilities to be able to progress those areas at a faster rate, we've got the optionality to do that as well.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

If neither of those things comes true, you stick the numbers we presented here in your model, you're right. Our level of cash would probably step forward from GBP 176 in the year that's just finished to a bigger number at the end of the year that's just started. That's, I guess, where our capital allocation policy is clear. We are going to progress the dividend, if we've got excess cash that we can't find a better use for, we'll do more buybacks.

[John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Great. Thanks, Bruce.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thank you, John. To Adam.

[Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg]

Thanks very much. Adam Tomlinson from Berenberg. First question is just, can you maybe just comment, Alex, on the resilience of the business and how that's improved? I think Currys, people used to associate it with a lot of cyclicality. In the current, I suppose, in the U.K., tough consumer backdrop, you're delivering positive like-for-like growth. You've commented current trading has been very solid. I would think that flat to even slightly down would be understandable in this environment.

[Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg]

The strength of that trading, just perhaps about how the resilience of the business has improved and a bit of color on that would be great, please. A second question just on CapEx, which I think the guidance is to step up a little bit this year, still below that GBP 100, if you could just maybe talk about where that additional CapEx might go, and if that includes anything for, you mentioned some infill M&A as well, just a comment on that would be great. Thanks.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Let me take the resilience point first. You're right to point it out, Adam, we just finished with John's question on cash in the bank. Having GBP 176 million of net cash, even after GBP 150-odd million of shareholder returns and substantially dealing with the pension deficit, is clearly a comfortable place to be. It's good that we've taken the thick end of GBP 1 billion of debt out of this business over the past five years. I'm sure you'll draw plenty of comfort from that. That's the first answer to the question. More than that, when we're talking about growing the business, we're talking about growing the business on strong foundations.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

It's the very foundations that we built of discipline on margin and cost that have given us the license and the bandwidth to go after these profitable growth opportunities. As you've heard from Bruce, we have no intention of relaxing those margin and cost disciplines. Why should we? They've served the business really well. Now we do have these profitable growth opportunities that are proving themselves. They're not speculative. They're driving healthy double-digit growth. As you say, in a U.K. technology market that went backwards by 1.3% last year, to be posting 3% like-for-likes is nothing.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We've done that, yes, by eking out some share growth in the core, the 60 basis points of improvement that we talked about, but also by going after a much broader range of growth opportunities where we still have every right to win. These aren't random growth opportunities. They're ones that grow from our core, like small to medium-sized businesses where our core business that we've established to serve consumers has so much of what it takes to serve small to medium-sized businesses as well. What we don't have, we've built.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We've got 20% growth to show for it. It's not just B2B. There's the new categories. Then finally, there's solutions and services. Of course, it's good for customers and good for us that we're building out the solutions and the services that are such an important part of them. It's good for everybody. They rest on capabilities that we've got that nobody else has got or will have, so there's a competitive moat angle to these services. They're a source of higher margin recurring revenues, and that's the last part of the answer. When you've got 30% and growing of your revenues that are recurring, that starts to build stabilizers into the P&L.

[Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg]

Thanks.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Thanks, Adam. You're right. Our expectation is to grow CapEx in the year ahead. Our CapEx falls into three broad buckets, investing in our stores, investing in our supply chain, and investing within systems. I think the first point to say is that as we've got behind us some of the maybe risks or challenges, the GBP 32 million of government headwinds, the big contributions we were paying into the pension scheme, the ongoing high cash exceptionals that we were aware about.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

As those go into the rearview mirror, we've got more flexibility, we're able to step up the level of CapEx. I think another point, you will have noticed that the capital expenditure in the year that's just finished, particularly in the U.K., was lower than we originally forecast. The reason for that, we talked about moving some of our technology into the cloud. We had a few problems which caused some of the cash outflow within our exceptionals. That caused us to put the handbrake on some of the tech development. Again, that has drifted into the next year.

[Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg]

Thanks.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thanks. If we could go to Richard at the front.

[Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC]

Thanks. Morning. Richard Chamberlain, RBC. Maybe a couple, I think probably both for you, Alex, if that's all right. You mentioned in your presentation about there's an availability opportunity using gap analysis and so on, and I wondered if you'd give a little bit more color on that. Is that around trying to change the kind of culture of colleagues in store a little bit to improve that, or have you got some new tools, maybe AI related or something to help with identifying gaps in availability?

[Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC]

Presumably that could actually be a nice like-for-like sales driver in the year ahead. That's the first one. Then the second one's on sort of cost savings. I know you've got these statutory cost headwinds sort of falling away, or they're going to be less of a headwind. Are there any other kind of company specific headwinds or cost opportunities that you'd highlight? Any particular buckets that you'd highlight going forward? Thanks.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Bruce, do you want to deal with the cost one first?

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Yeah. No, absolutely. Our cost saving opportunities, I guess, fall into a number of buckets. One is tech. We talked about moving some of our technology into the cloud, but there is still a number of areas where we've got legacy systems, legacy data, where through AI, there's an opportunity to unlock value and deliver synergies.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

That's certainly a big opportunity for us. Within our stores, you heard Alex talk about electronic shelf-edge labels. He talked about, again, some of the AI deployment into our stores. Again, we look at processes. AI, I think by itself is a great opportunity, for example, within our contact centers. For example, being able to register and track the types of calls we're receiving. That used to be a burden activity. Also we're putting tools into colleagues' hands in the center, which again, will allow people to be efficient.

[Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC]

Thank you.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

On the availability point, there's a few things in there. You mentioned culture, and you're right to. Well-meaning colleagues who like the shelves to look good would often cover up gaps in availability by putting other stock in there and taking the tickets of the missing product away, which makes the place look better, but it makes it harder to spot gaps in availability and then drive replenishment. Yes, there's a cultural aspect to this, which is to trust that if there's a gap in the shelf, we leave it there, and what we focus on is replenishing it rather than covering it up to make it look better.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

That's only one aspect of it. There's hard process behind this, and I mentioned daily gap scanning, which is a discipline that we've put in place that wasn't there before and that's had a really big effect. The other part of it is the analytics side, the AAA tool. Good example, by the way, of best practice sharing across the group and how that can work. It was originally a Nordics tool that the U.K. team cheerfully copied, improved to a better state than it was being used in the Nordics, which made Fredrik cross. He took it back and now the Nordics are developing that even further.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

What that does is it simply identifies the most important products, the fastest moving, the highest selling, and the best margin for us, and just makes sure that we don't come out of stock in those products, make sure we've got the depth of range in those products and the depth of availability. Those things together, better analytics and better process, are having quite a big impact, and I mentioned over 60% improvement on shelf availability.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

If we can make a meaningful dent in that 1/3 of customers, up to 1/3 of customers coming into our stores and leaving empty-handed in large part because of availability issues. We know it's already made, good luck taking the sugar out the tea. We know it's already made a meaningful impact to sales growth, market share growth, and driven by conversion improvements in our stores in the year just past, but there's significantly further to come here.

[Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC]

Sure. Okay. Thank you.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thank you, Richard. Could we come to Nick?

[Nick Barker, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Good morning. Nick Barker from BNP Paribas. Firstly, you continue to target long-term EBIT margins of 3%, and as you say, you're sort of almost there in the U.K. and Ireland. What sort of timeframe do you see for meeting the target in the Nordics? Is there a ceiling at 3% or can we go higher?

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

There is no timeframe on the basis. Clearly, we're pushing as hard as we possibly can to go as quickly as we can. You saw on the slide that from a Nordic perspective, we've traded successfully over 3% for the best part of a decade. In terms of the target, our position here is really clear. It's not 3%, it's at least 3%. If we hadn't faced into the much talked about this morning, government headwinds, in the U.K., for example, we would've been well north of 3% in the year that's just finished. There's no headroom, and there is no constraint in our ability to push on.

[Nick Barker, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Thank you. My second question is just in terms of that sort of short current trading comment about it starting very well for the year ahead, which is great. Is there any comment you can provide on sort of product mix or what the drivers behind that have been for the start of the year?

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Very solid, I think is the phrase that we're sticking to. Yes, it's a satisfactory start to the year. We're not going to provide a great deal of color on it, Nick. I would say that there is a World Cup going on at the moment, which Currys Group has two remaining interested countries. We'll be cheering on Norway. A Norway-England final would do us nicely for telly sales. It's not just about TVs. It's also about barbecues and home beer pumps and the like, which are selling really nicely. Clearly TV is at the heart of it, and the supersizing trend continues to give.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

I think we more than doubled our sales of 90 in plus TVs in the year just past. It's creating us a bit of a supply chain headache, the supersizing trend, because we've got 130 in TVs coming and 150 in TVs on the way, which weigh in at 256 kg, which if you're doing a wall mount on that, it has a bit of challenge to it. The news is good, right? It plays to our strengths. We are the ones to come to when you want the best TV. We are the ones to come to when you want delivery and installation. The more the merrier when it comes to this trend.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

All that said, and we'll be happy about England and Norway going further for TV sales, but we're less and less dependent as a business on these big events now. We've built out a much broader based set of growth drivers as we talked about today, whether it's the strong return of mobile in the U.K., whether it's the new categories which are growing so nicely, 52% up in the U.K., or the big and still relatively untapped opportunity of selling to small to medium-sized businesses as well as to consumers. The services that drive that 30% of revenue now recurring. All of these things make us less dependent on things like the World Cup, welcome though they are.

[Nick Barker, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Thank you.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thank you. Any further questions? Brilliant. Ben, at the end there.

[Analyst]

Thanks. Firstly, thanks for all your insight over the years, Alex, and best of luck in your future. Just going back to Nick's question, and it feels like you're sort of approaching the uplands, dare we say it, with good top-line momentum, as you said, Bruce, the inflationary headwinds are falling away. If pressed, though, and so it feels like there's quite a bit of margin tailwind or slack, if you like. If pressed, what would your preference be for to perhaps bank that margin or to maybe go for that market share more aggressively if you could reinvest back in the proposition? That's the sort of first question, I guess.

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Our position, I think, has been consistent over the last three, four years. We solve for cash. Chasing sales for the sake of chasing sales or chasing market share for the sake of market share is not the way we operate. Hopefully, we can achieve both, I think we've been able to demonstrate, particularly over the last 12 months, that we have been able to achieve both by picking products or picking categories or introducing new categories that are margin accretive. That is, I think, our secret sauce, the fact that we stay disciplined because anybody can sell stuff for nothing. That is not what we do.

[Analyst]

Just second question, more sort of technical. There is a bit of a step up in the EBT purchases expected for this year. I presume that is a bit of catch up and perhaps the share price going up, but how should we start to think about that on an sort of ongoing basis? Is that sort of normal run rate GBP 40 million, or would that start to normalize back in outer years, perhaps?

[Bruce Marsh, Group CFO at Currys]

Our policy on the EBT is to hold sufficient shares to cover for the next year. Right now, the shares that we are buying are FY 2028 to make sure that we have got sufficient shares in the bank to cover that. Clearly, our goal is to make sure that shareholders are not diluted so that we have enough in the bank. We can think internally in terms of whether we can provide any guidance, but I think the GBP 30 million that we are calling out, I think you should assume that is maybe the run rate for the next couple of years.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thank you, Ben. Can we come to Charles Allen at the front here?

[Charles Allen, Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence]

Thanks. Charles Allen from Bloomberg Intelligence. Can I just come back to the chip price rises? How aware are consumers of the rising chip costs, and do you think people are bringing forward purchases just to make sure that they're not hit by 20% and 30% price increases?

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We're not seeing enormous levels of awareness on this, we're not anticipating a massive forward pull either, to answer your question directly. There are reasons for that. One of the reasons is that we are intending to shield the consumer from as much of these price rises as possible, and as number one in the market with the biggest heft with suppliers, we're best placed to do so. Particularly, as you heard from Bruce before, on this at least, we are prescient enough to do significant forward buys. We've locked in supply and we've locked in stock, we're not going to face the immediate availability challenges that some of our competitors might. That's the first thing.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Second thing is consumers have kind of got used in computing to a year-on-year value for money improvements because they get more specification for their pound of purchase price every year. The rate of that improvement might tail off somewhat this year. The specification improvements might be lower this year than they've seen in previous years. Most consumers, that's not very important to, for all consumers, it'll have the happy consequence of dampening the price rises. We're certainly not giving up on protecting consumers from these price rises. You ask us what we expect. We expect that inevitably some of these cost price inflation drivers will make it through into the purchase price, but we're working hard to avoid that.

[Charles Allen, Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence]

Thank you.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thank you, Charles. Adam?

[Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg]

Thanks very much. One more question from me, please. I think a lot of people have said it already, but congratulations, Alex. I think it's been a fantastic turnaround. You've mentioned some of the things you've achieved, but I think it's often overlooked that that has been against the backdrop of COVID, supply chain disruptions, wars. Personally, I think one of the best retail turnarounds over the last decade, congratulations on that. You've always been very quick to praise the teams around you and the teams you've built.

[Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg]

Just a final thought from you on that, if we could just firstly around the operational teams, the confidence that gives you going forward. I suppose to my mind, one of perhaps your biggest legacy is the step up we've seen in the workforce in terms of in-store colleagues, the repair center colleagues, the engagement levels, the service levels they offer, and ultimately those are the first point of contact many customers have with the business. Just great to get your thoughts on that, please, and how that gives you confidence going forward.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Thank you. Look, you're right to point to the team because no chief executive achieves anything on their own, and that's doubly true in a retailer like us of the scale that we've got. I'm incredibly fortunate with a world-class team I've been lucky enough to surround myself with, and which Fredrik is inheriting, many of whom you've met. There's no better way to ensure the sustainable success of a business than having people around the table who are expert in their fields and work really well together and really care about what they do and really bust a gut for each other, for customers, and for the business.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

We're fortunate to have that here, not just around the executive table, but being recognized as the number one retailer employer in the U.K. by Glassdoor and The Sunday Times really matters. It's not just because we're lovely people, it's a commercial imperative to having people here who really know what they're doing and want to be here. It's been an essential foundation of the business's success.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Of course, I take a lot of pride in everything the team's done here, and it gives me a lot of pleasure, if I have to leave here, to leave here when everything is heading in the right direction and everything is tracking in the right direction. I will be a loyal Currys customer, shareholder, and advocate my whole life. I'll be cheering Fredrik and the team on from the sidelines, even if I won't be up here. I'm confident that they can not just continue, but accelerate this momentum.

[Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations at Currys]

Thank you. I think that's a good point at which to finish.

[Alex Baldock, Group CEO at Currys]

Thanks all.

Participants

Executives

• Alex Baldock, Group CEO
• Bruce Marsh, Group CFO
• Dan Homan, Director of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Adam Tomlinson, Analyst at Berenberg
• Charles Allen, Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence
• John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Nick Barker, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC
• Analyst
• Analyst