Home improvement group Kingfisher said its underlying sales jumped 21.8% year-on-year in its second quarter to June 13 as its European stores emerged from coronavirus lockdowns, encouraging people to take on do-it-yourself projects.
Kingfisher owns B&Q and Screwfix in Ireland and the UK and Castorama and Brico Depot in France and other markets.
It said it could not provide specific guidance for its 2020-21 year given the uncertainty around the pandemic.
The group has seen an improving relative sales trend, with like-for-like sales moving from being down 74% in the first week of April to over 25% up since the second week of May.
All of Kingfisher's UK, Irish and French stores were closed for in-store purchases from March 23 and 15 respectively, though click and collect and home delivery options were made available.
It gradually re-opened its stores UK and French stores in the second half of April while its Irish outlets re-opened in the middle of May.
The retailer said it has seen a fourfold increase in e-commerce sales since mid-March.
The group has taken steps to reduce costs, preserve cash and boost liquidity to get it through the crisis. As at June 12 it had access to over £3 billion of cash, providing significant liquidity headroom.
For its year to January 31, Kingfisher reported adjusted pretax profit down 5.2% to £544m on total sales down 1.5% to £11.5 billion.
Statutory pretax profit fell 65.7% to £103m after it took £441m of exceptional items, largely reflecting impairments for its stores and Russia.
The group said in March it would not pay a final dividend.
