Argos loses more than £200m as over 2,000 jobs cut
Argos lost more than £200m during its latest financial year as over it cut over 2,000 jobs.
The retailer, which is owned by FTSE 100 supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, has reported a pre-tax loss of £223.2m for the 12 months to 1 March, 2025.
The loss comes after Argos posted a pre-tax profit of £37.3m in the prior financial year.
New accounts filed with Companies house also show its revenue fell from £4.22bn to £4.13bn over the same period.
Argos also reduced its headcount in the year from 12,000 to 9,800 employees.
The retailer said its lower revenue was “driven by a subdued and highly competitive general merchandise market”.
It added that there had been a “significant reduction” in online traffic during the first half of its financial year and that a “cooler and wetter summer” meant its sales were behind expectations.
However, Argos said that while “remaining highly promotionally driven its sales improved during the final six months “as the online traffic improved”.
It also said that the company returned to year-on-year growth in its fourth quarter.
Argos said it made an underlying pre-tax loss of £73m because of lower general merchandise margins which reflected higher promotional sales “in touch trading conditions”.
Sainsbury’s aborts Argos sales talks
In a statement signed off by the board, the retailer said: “Following this slow start to the financial year and within a vernal merchandise market that remains highly competitive, our focus is on encouraging customers to shop with us more often and with bigger baskets.
“To this end, we are driving change in our digital and commercial proposition and we have made some good progress strengthening the Argos offer.
“We have also continued to reduce the complexity of the Argos operating model, whilst still providing market-leading convenience for customers.”
The accounts have been filed after Sainsbury’s confirmed in September that it was in discussions for a potential sale of Argos to Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com.
However, a day later, Sainsbury’s terminated the talks with JD.com.
JD.com is China’s largest retailer with 600m annual active customers.
Sainsbury’s bought Argos for more than £1bn less than a decade ago and it is now the UK’s second-largest general merchandise retailer, behind Tesco.