National DIY retailer B&Q has enjoyed impressive sales growth across the first half of 2025, also noting that purchases of big ticket items such as kitchens or bathrooms have increased for the third financial quarter in a row.
B&Q’s parent company, Kingfisher, recently released its half year results for the year, which show that the retailer saw its year-on-year sales increase by 4.6%, rising to £2.17bn. According to the company, this was driven by its initiatives in trade, e-commerce and the sale of big ticket items.
This marks a stark turnaround from this time last year, in which “weak” demand for purchases like kitchens and bathrooms resulted in a 12% decline in big-ticket sales.
Kingfisher noted that its positive results for the first half of this year were partly driven “by customer transference from the closure of Homebase stores”, after many of its rival’s locations closed after the company entered administration last year.
According to the B&Q, along with growth in items like painting and hardware, the introduction of a new tiered kitchen offering this year has “broadened customer appeal” and contributed meaningfully to its performance so far in 2025. The national retailer now sells three price ranges of kitchens – called Essential, Select, and Signature – with the cheapest range said to make up a quarter of the company’s kitchen sales. B&Q’s kitchen installations were also reportedly up 36% year-on-year.
For Kingfisher as a whole – as the company also owns Screwfix, along with B&Q – profits rose by 5.7% year-on-year, to £344m.
Tradepoint, B&Q’s trade arm also delivered encouraging like-for-like growth of almost 7%, which is now said to represent 22.4% of B&Q’s total sales. B&Q has a visible TradePoint presence in 222 of its stores, which reportedly represents 70% of its total retail store estate.
Speaking of which, B&Q says it opened nine stores in the first half of which, all but one of which were former Homebase sites which have been converted. The retail chain also closed two stores. Clarifying its total store empire, B&Q confirmed that it operates a grand total of 317 stores across the UK and Ireland as of July 31.
Outside of just bricks-and-mortar stores, B&Q’s e-commerce sales rose by an impressive 23.8% year-on-year.
Discussing the financial results for Kingfisher as a whole, company CEO Thierry Garnier said: “We delivered a strong first half with high quality underlying like-for-like sales growth of 1.9%, driven by increased volumes and transactions. Our teams continue to execute at a high level, delivering double-digit growth in our strategic initiatives, trade and e-commerce, which supported our market share gains.
“We were encouraged by underlying quarter-on-quarter growth in our core categories, and a third consecutive quarter of growth in big ticket sales. In a higher cost environment, we remain disciplined on managing costs and cash.
“Our expectations for our markets for the year remain consistent with what we outlined in March, whilst mindful of mixed consumer sentiment and political uncertainty. Combined with our H1 performance, this gives us the confidence to upgrade our full year profit and free cash flow guidance and to accelerate our share buyback programme.
He concluded: “We remain focused on executing our strategic priorities, maintaining cost discipline and driving shareholder returns.”