Pre-tax profits at the Irish arm of Harvey Norman increased almost three fold to €31.08m last year.
New figures show that the electrical and furniture retailer recorded the 170% or €19.59m jump in pre-tax profits as revenues soared by 51% or €139.4m from €271.72m to €411.12m in the 12 months to the end of June last.
The increase in revenues for Harvey Norman Holdings (Ireland) Ltd is only partly explained by the retailer opening two new stores at Galway in July 2020 and Sligo in November 2020 to bring the number of stores to 15 in the Republic and two in Northern Ireland.
The directors state that the new store openings "strengthened our brand further in the west of Ireland".
However, the directors report that the 15 stores in the Republic "out-performed the discretionary retail market with market share gains across all key product categories".
The directors state that the business, including its flagship outlet at Tallaght, continued to benefit from customers investing in their homes.
They state that "double digit sales increases and market share growth was experienced across all product categories".
The directors said that during the year, the business here was subject to two Covid-19 Level 5 lockdowns.
They state that during each Level 5 lockdown, Harvey Norman's electrical and computer categories were permitted to trade in-store while furniture and bedding categories were closed.
They said that they were pleased with the performance of its two stores in Northern Ireland despite dual challenges posed by Covid-19 and Brexit.
The group recorded post tax profits of €28.5m after paying corporation tax of €2.57m.
The directors state that the business intends to open a new store at Fonthill business park in west Dublin this year.
Numbers employed by the group last year increased by 359 from 1,013 to 1,372 as staff costs increased from €36.16m to €55.32m.
Directors' remuneration last year increased from €817,016 to €872,520 that included pension contributions of €14,000.
The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €4.32m. The group’s lease costs last year increased from €12.93 million to €13.94m.
At the end of June last, the group had shareholder funds of €61.67m.
The group’s cash funds totalled €20.91m.
