British baby products retailer Mothercare narrowed its losses for the first half of the year as international sales growth and an improving UK performance helped boost business.
It said it had made an underlying pretax loss of £0.6m in the 28 weeks to October 13, compared with a loss of £4.4m in the same period last year.
Mothercare is cutting prices and improving its delivery service to help fight intense competition from British supermarkets and the internet.
It posted its first UK underlying sales growth in 11 quarters in October.
The group, which has 1,378 worldwide stores, including 280 in the UK, said British like-for-like sales had declined by 3.4% in the period, improving on a 7% fall in the period a year ago.
Overseas, where Mothercare has plans to open 150 stores this year, like-for-like sales rose 4.4% although growth in Europe, its biggest international market, was dampened by weak trading conditions in the euro zone.
It said it expected similar overseas sales growth in its second half.
Total first-half worldwide network sales rose 2.1% to £636.8m.
Losses in Britain narrowed to £17m, while international profit rose 20% to £22.1m.
As part of new chief executive Simon Calver's turnaround strategy the group closed 31 UK stores in the first half, and said it was on target to close 50 in total for the year.
The company yesterday named Argos finance director Matt Smith as its new chief financial officer.
