FULL-YEAR figures from a mobile phone retailer and a transport firm are among the highlights for this week.
Booming demand for tablet computers and smartphones is expected to help mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse ring up robust annual profits when it reports on Wednesday.
The firm, which recently called time on its joint venture with US firm Best Buy, saw profits rise 57 per cent to £8.3m in the half year after a ten per cent surge in UK sales over the second quarter.
Analysts are expecting a strong performance from that point on to help full-year figures, with Citi experts pencilling in underlying pre-tax profits of £60.3m against £58.3m a year earlier.
The market has also been impressed by Carphone’s cutprice deal to buy back Best Buy’s 50 per cent stake in its its European retail business.
It revealed at the end of April that it would buy out Best Buy for £471m in cash and shares, having received £1.1bn from the US group for a 50 per cent stake in Carphone Warehouse Europe in 2008.
The City will be looking for signs of a boost from the UK’s recovering housing market when floor coverings retailer Carpetright posts annual results tomorrow.
The chain of more than 600 stores across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium has endured a tough few years as crashing consumer spending eroded sales and profits.
But results for the year to the end of April are expected to show a return to profits growth as the group has benefited from self-help measures led by new chief executive Darren Shapland, who took over from veteran boss Lord Harris of Peckham last year.
Analysts are forecasting an improvement in underlying pre-tax profits to £9.6m, from £4m a year earlier.
The performance would come as a marked turnaround after profits tumbled by 76 per cent the previous year.
A robust performance from Stagecoach’s UK regional bus arm should help the transport group report growing annual profits on Wednesday.
The Perth-based group, which is one of the UK’s biggest bus and coach operators with about 8,000 vehicles and 2.5 million passengers every day, is forecast to increase underlying profits to £210m for the year to the end of April, up from £202.5m a year earlier.
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