Trade kitchen giant Howdens has continued its strong financial start to 2025, which it said is partly down to implementing price increases from January of this year.
Group underlying trading revenue for the first four months of the year was up by a comfortable 3% over last year’s figures. For the UK specifically, Howdens revenue was up by 2.6%, and on an international scale, the retailer saw a 17% year-on-year increase.
On an absolute basis, Howdens’ group revenue was 1.2% ahead of the prior year. In the UK, it was 0.9% ahead of the prior year, and the international market was 14.8% ahead.
Howdens also said it had implemented price increases “across all geographies” at the start of the year. The retailer said these increases are being retained at acceptable levels as the company looks to maintain “the right balance between margin and volume”.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Howdens says it plans to open an additional 20-25 depots in the UK before the end of the year, as well as refurbishing 60 older UK depots. The kitchen giant also plans to launch 23 new kitchen ranges this year, including a new classic ‘in frame’ timber kitchen family.
“We have made a positive start to the year with trading in line with our expectations,” reflected Andrew Livingston, CEO of Howdens. He continued: “Our focus remains on implementing our strategic initiatives to support our trade customers, primarily self-employed builders.
“They are adept at winning business, aided by Howdens’ differentiated model and our well incentivised depot teams. Our approach continues to deliver sustainable market share gains, and we are on track with our outlook for 2025.”
These positive results continue Howdens’ positive momentum from last year, during which time the retailer said it had generated £2.322bn in revenue – a 0.5% increase over the previous year’s sales despite the difficult market.
However, despite his optimism, Livingston recently warned that the UK kitchen market could see a further contraction before the end of the year. Commenting on the future of the industry in Howdens’ Annual Report in February, he predicted: “Given the prevailing macroeconomic environment, we expect market conditions to remain challenging and we anticipate that the total kitchen market may contract again this year.”
