Group revenue at building and DIY supplies group, Grafton, was down 4.4% to £1.14bn between January and June when compared to the same period last year, the company has said.
The business said overall trading in its business remained challenging in the period, with average daily like-for-like revenue 4.5% lower on a year earlier.
In a trading update covering the first half of the year, ahead of its results on August 29th, it said management teams have continued to actively manage both gross margins and cost base in response to market conditions.
"We were very pleased with the performance of our businesses in Ireland, where the outlook for growth continues to remain positive," said chief executive, Eric Born.
"Elsewhere the repair, maintenance & improvement, and new build markets remain more challenging, but our management teams will continue to actively manage both our gross margins and cost base in response to market conditions."
"Medium-term structural industry dynamics remain positive, and as flagged at the time of our AGM update in May, we expect profitability to be slightly more weighted to the second half of the year."
Grafton owns well-known brands such as Woodie's and Chadwicks.
It said that in Ireland, Chadwicks saw a resumption of growth in average daily like-for-like revenue in the second quarter following a decline of 0.2% in the first quarter.
Volume growth in the first six months was around 5.4% and was strongly ahead of the comparable period last year, it added.
While Woodie's recorded sales that were slightly weaker in the second quarter, but had good margin management and cost control which together delivered an improvement in profitability over the same period last year.
"The Government policy agenda is strongly supportive of increasing the development of new homes and, as a consequence, the housing market continues to grow with commencements strongly ahead in the first half and reaching a post Global Financial Crisis high," Grafton said.
"The outlook for growth in construction in Ireland remains positive and the deflationary pressures seen in steel and timber have continued to moderate with overall price deflation of circa 4.9% in the first six months."
The group said that in the UK, weak trends in the first quarter in the repair, maintenance & improvement market continued up until the end of the period.
While in the Netherlands, it said growth in revenue from customers engaged on larger construction projects continued to partially offset the modest decline in sales to timber factories and smaller customers.
It added that there have been more positive signs that the housing market is starting to improve with increasing transactions and price rises in the existing housing stock.
Grafton also has operations in Finland where it said IKH's average daily like-for-like revenue was 7.7% lower due to the continued weakness in the domestic economy, export markets and the construction sector in particular.
"Given our strong financial position we are actively progressing inorganic development opportunities in existing and new European geographies," Mr Born said.
"Our objective is to continue to strengthen our market and sector positions and add to our portfolio of high-quality cash generative businesses within a disciplined financial framework."
"With our strong market positions and the scope for operating leverage throughout the Group's businesses as the macro-economic outlook improves, we remain confident in the medium-term outlook for Grafton."
