Demand for guitars, keyboards and home recording equipment has led to a successful peak trading period for Gear4Music, the York-headquartered musical instrument e-tailer.
For the three months to 31 December 2020, the company reported a 10% rise in UK sales. Sales to Europe and the rest of the world, meanwhile, increased 51% to £29.2 million.
Full-year EBITDA is therefore expected to be ahead of company expectation, and not less than £16.5 million (compared to £7.8m last year).
Chief Executive Andrew Wass said: “Strong growth during the period has been driven by products that can be used and played at home, including guitars, keyboards and home recording equipment.
“We know many of our customers are looking forward to rehearsing and performing together again, and as social distancing restrictions are eased, we expect our Live Sound, Drums and Orchestral categories to return to stronger growth.
“As expected, the end of the Brexit transition period and the UK’s departure from the EU customs union was not without its challenges, which we had extensively planned for and have carefully managed.
“New cross border processing costs have been introduced, alongside the added complexity and cost of additional rules of origin duties contained within the Brexit trade deal.
“The planned scale-up of our European hub infrastructure has provided a solid operational platform to help overcome these challenges, and also helped to mitigate the impact of port closures in December 2020 as a result of COVID.
“Whilst there are further refinements for us to make, I am pleased that the planned reconfiguration of our delivery systems and transport network has performed well, and has supported stronger trading since 1 January 2021 than the board had initially expected.”
