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Currys full-year profits rose 18%, dividend doubled and new £50m buyback announced as the retailer gains UK market share.
This article covers information on Currys PLC.
LON:CURYCurrys has put out a genuinely strong full-year update, and this is one of those retail results where the quality of the numbers matters just as much as the headline growth. For the year ended 2 May 2026, group adjusted profit before tax – adjusted meaning it strips out one-off and non-trading items – rose to £191m, up 18% year on year. Free cash flow improved to £157m, and the group finished the year with £176m of net cash.
That last bit is important. Currys got there after paying £82m into its pension scheme and returning £74m to shareholders. In plain English, this business is not just growing profits on paper – it is producing real cash and starting to share more of it.
| Metric | 2025/26 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Group revenue | £9,254m | +6% |
| Like-for-like sales | Not disclosed as a value figure | +4% |
| Adjusted EBIT | £255m | +13% |
| Adjusted profit before tax | £191m | +18% |
| Adjusted EPS | 13.4p | +19% |
| Free cash flow | £157m | +5% |
| Year-end net cash | £176m | -4% |
| Full-year dividend | 3.0p | +100% |
| New buyback | £50m | New |
The big takeaway is that Currys looks more resilient than it did a few years ago. It is growing in both the UK & Ireland and the Nordics, margins are moving the right way at group level, and the balance sheet is strong enough to support a doubled dividend and another £50m share buyback.
I also like that the growth is not coming from one lucky category alone. The company points to gains in market share, recurring services revenue of £873m, up 7%, credit sales up 10% to £1.2bn, and iD Mobile subscribers up 18% to 2.6m. Those are higher-quality revenue streams than just flogging more televisions at thin margins.
There is another good sign under the bonnet. Statutory profit before tax rose to £153m from £124m, while adjusted profit before tax hit £191m. The gap between those two figures reflects adjusting items of £38m at profit before tax level, so it is worth keeping an eye on, but the statutory performance is improving too.
The UK & Ireland business delivered revenue of £5,438m, up 3%, with like-for-like revenue also up 3%. That is a solid result because Currys says the market declined 1.3% over the year, meaning it gained 60 basis points of market share. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point, so 60 basis points means a 0.6 percentage point gain.
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Adjusted EBIT – earnings before interest and tax – in UK & Ireland rose to £158m, up 3%. Gross margin improved by 20 basis points, helped by better adoption of credit and services, plus improved profitability on product sales.
The interesting bit here is the mix. Recurring services revenue in UK & Ireland rose to £648m, up 7%, while iD Mobile subscribers reached 2.6m and credit sales hit £1.2bn. That tells you Currys is becoming less dependent on one-off product sales and more dependent on sticky, repeat revenue.
The negative is that UK & Ireland margin did not expand. Adjusted EBIT margin stayed flat at 2.9% because cost increases, including employment costs and investment spend, ate up some of the gains. Currys also said it had to absorb £32m of incremental annual costs from the UK Government’s 2024 Autumn Budget, so the business is still having to work hard just to stand still on margin.
The Nordics were arguably the star of the show. Revenue rose to £3,816m, up 12% reported and up 6% on a currency-neutral basis, with like-for-like sales also up 6%. Adjusted EBIT jumped to £97m, up 26% currency neutral.
That sort of profit growth in retail usually means one of two things: either the company cut too deep before, or it has real operating leverage. Here it looks more like the second. Operating costs were flat, sales improved, and adjusted EBIT margin rose to 2.5% from 2.1%.
There was, however, one awkward wrinkle. Gross margin fell by 60 basis points because forward purchase contracts were devalued as local currencies strengthened against the Euro. Excluding that, gross margin was broadly flat. Market share in the Nordics also dipped slightly to 28.0% from 28.3%, so this was not perfect, just very good.
This is where the results get more convincing. Group operating cash flow rose 13% to £294m, and free cash flow increased to £157m. Capital expenditure was £79m, still controlled, and the group kept year-end net cash at £176m.
The pension position has improved dramatically. The IAS 19 pension deficit fell to just £6m from £103m a year earlier, mainly thanks to the £82m contribution made in the year. Scheduled pension contributions now drop to £13m a year from 2026/27 to 2030/31, which should leave more cash available for growth or shareholder returns.
Not everything in working capital was pretty. Inventory rose 14% to £1,181m, while network receivables increased by £27m as iD Mobile grew. Still, stock days improved to 60 from 62, which suggests this was planned growth rather than messy stock build.
Income investors will like this update. Currys has proposed a final dividend of 2.25p, taking the full-year dividend to 3.0p, up 100% year on year. Dividend cover is 4.5x, and the board is targeting a further reduction to around 4.0x in 2026/27, which implies room for more dividend growth if trading holds up.
On top of that, a new £50m share buyback starts today. I think that is a sensible use of capital rather than a flashy one. The board still wants to keep at least £100m of year-end net cash, so this is not management getting carried away after one decent year.
There is also a management handover. Fredrik Tønnesen, currently Nordics CEO, will become group chief executive from 3 August, replacing Alex Baldock. Given the Nordics performance, this looks like a logical internal promotion rather than a risky reset.
On outlook, Currys said trading since the year end has been “very solid” and it is comfortable with current market consensus for 2026/27 adjusted profit before tax of £198m. That is encouraging, although it is not formal profit guidance yet. As usual, the company will update the market after the peak trading period.
There are still risks. Macro uncertainty has not gone away, interest expense is expected at around £60m to £65m this year, capital expenditure is guided at around £95m, and the company highlights cyber risk, supply chain disruption and consumer weakness as live issues. It also disclosed open legacy tax cases where probable cash outflows have been assessed at £52m, including tax and interest, so this is not a completely clean story.
My read is straightforward: this was a good set of results, and more importantly, a believable one. Currys is growing profit, growing cash, improving its pension position, and returning more money to shareholders, while also gaining share in a tough UK market.
The weak spots are there if you want them – flat UK & Ireland margin, a small market share dip in the Nordics, and the usual retail exposure to consumer confidence. But on balance, this RNS says Currys is in better shape operationally and financially than it has been for a long time. For retail investors, that makes this update matter.
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