Despite significant leadership changes, JD Sports reported sales up 12 per cent to £ 10.1 billion for the year ended 28th January 2023, in what its chair called ‘another period of excellent progress.‘
For the time period, pre-tax profit before special items reached a record £ 991.4 million. Pre-tax profit was £ 440.9 million for the period (down from £ 654.7 million), after adjusted items of £ 550.5 million, while gross margin dipped from 49.1 per cent to 47.8 per cent from a year ago.
Higginson said the group had not allowed the changes to distract it as it steered towards another record year. “In July 2022 I had the great privilege of being appointed the Chair of the JD Group. This followed the departure of Peter Cowgill who had led the business so successfully for the previous 18 years.”
After Schultz joined the company, it increased its focus on the sports industry and soon sold off a number of non-core fashion brands to competitor Frasers Group, including the stores Giulio and Cricket. Additionally, Schultz described its strategy for being a genuinely global player in sports retail.
Higginson claimed that the company experienced a big uptick in revenue in the second half of the previous fiscal year, particularly in North America, where product supply had returned to normal following problems with the supply chain caused by the epidemic. As a result, the company is aiming to grow even further in the North American market as part of its newly made public aggressive growth ambitions to open up to 350 stores worldwide annually.
It has had tremendous growth in the US, adding a flagship location in Chicago, and has opened 58 net new stores throughout Europe, including in Hungary and Greece.
The company claimed that demand from its young adult clientele had encouraged it, and despite price increases of between 5 per cent and 10 per cent, the company was in a strong position to provide ‘affordable luxury‘ to its target market.
