Maisons du Monde‘s first six months were excellent. The French furniture store chain’s turnover grew 28 % thanks to several new stores and a growing online sales channel.
13 new stores
Over the first six months of the year, Maisons du Monde managed a 389.6 million euro turnover, up 28 % compared to the same period last year, partially because of several new stores. Currently, it has 275 new stores, up 13 compared to the end of June 2015.
Like-for-like profit growth reached 16.6 % thanks to very successful furniture and decoration collections and a growing online sales channel. French and Swiss customers can order their items online and pick them up at a store of their choice for free, an option available since January 2016.
Still onerous
Even though sales improved a lot, the furniture store chain is still onerous. Over the past 6 months, net losses grew to 53.9 million euro, almost 2.5 times as high as the first half of 2015. Investments in expansion, marketing and digitization are the main reasons for the increased net loss.
CEO Gilles Petit still believes the business model is sound, as expressed in an interview to LSA. “Our growth is spread evenly across furniture and decoration, between stores and online, between France and International. It proves our business model is solid. Our IPO (at the end of May) also strengthened our financial structure, giving us more financial leeway to continue our expansion plans.” For its full fiscal year, Maisons du Monde forecasts an 800 to 815 million euro group turnover (compared to 699 million euro in 2015).
