Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Beacon Lighting Group full year FY 2024 results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now hand the conference over to Mr. Ian Robinson, Executive Chairman. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, shareholders. Thank you for joining us today as we review the financial results of the Beacon Lighting Group for the financial year two thousand and twenty-four. I'm Ian Robinson, Executive Chairman of Beacon Lighting. I'm joined by our CEO, Glen Robinson, and our CFO, David Speirs. Financial year two thousand and twenty-four presented a challenging landscape for many retail businesses, with rising living costs, higher interest rates, and low consumer confidence. Despite these hurdles, our business has grown across various areas, including total sales, new store openings, increased trade sales, new trade customers, international sales, and commercial sales. A key factor in the success has been in our commitment to our trade strategy, partnering with trade customers and offering them new products, competitive pricing, free delivery, and the Beacon Cash Rebate.
Putting behind the economic challenges of two thousand and twenty-four, there's still reason to be optimistic. House prices are holding steady. Demand for new houses across Australia remains strong, and it appears we're nearing the peak of the interest rate cycle. The Group has strong strategies for the growth in our market share. I want to take a moment to sincerely thank our team for their expertise and dedication, which has consistently driven positive customers' experiences, with 99% of our customers surveyed responding that they've received good or great service. I also want to extend my gratitude to our valued customers for their continued support of our ever-evolving product range, proudly designed and developed here in Australia. Our trade customers partner with Beacon Trade as a strong option to supply their lighting and ceiling fans and electrical accessories for Australian home projects.
As outlined on page two of your material, today's agenda will begin with an overview of the results from Glen Robinson, followed by detailed financial performance report from David Speirs. Glen will then discuss the growth strategy and outlook, and we'll continue with question and answer session later on. I'll hand over to Glen for the overview of the results.
Thank you, Ian, and welcome to all attendees. Let's begin by moving to page four, where we'll present the financial performance, starting with the statutory accounts for the year. The statutory results and the underlying results differ. In FY 2024, Beacon Lighting had a 53 week, 53 weeks as we operate with a retail calendar, compared to FY 2023, which we had the regular 52 weeks. Therefore, in the underlying results, which I'll discuss on the next slide, we'll eliminate one week from this year's result to provide a better comparison year-on-year. I won't spend too much time on the statutory result on this page.
However, from a statutory sales and profit perspective, the business was really pleased to be able to achieve a record sales result of AUD $323 million, up from our previous record of AUD $311.9 million set last year, representing a 3.6% increase. The gross margin was a strong result of 69% versus last year's 67.7%. We're also pleased to be able to grow our EBITDA result to AUD $86.5 million, up 0.9% on last year. The Group finished with a net profit after tax of AUD $30.1 million, down 10.5% from last year's result. Moving to page five, we'll review the more comparative underlying result for FY 2024.
Sales advanced to a record AUD $317 million, up 1.6% in what would be considered a tough economic environment. It was pleasing to increase sales by AUD $5.1 million. Sales growth came from our success in partnering with our trade customers, online sales growth, and growth in Beacon Commercial and Beacon International, with some significant highlights that we'll touch on during the presentation. Gross profit was a great result for the group. Despite having a rapidly growing trade business, we were able to introduce new lines, achieve stronger economies of scale for our key trade products, and build our overall gross profit from 67.7% last year to 68.9%, or an increase of 120 basis points.
Other income was positive throughout the year, mostly representing the income received from property investments and interest income. This grew to AUD $2.3 million, up 54%. As expected, operating expenses were impacted by inflation and increased government charges and taxes. Base wage increase, plus increases in superannuation and WorkC over insurances, put pressure on remuneration costs. Land tax cost increases and electricity cost increases were some of the more significant lines to affect the operating expenses for the Group. The underlying EBITDA result was solid, coming in at AUD $85 million, just 0.8% down on last year's result. EBITDA as a percentage of sales was 26.8% versus last year at 27.5%.
Underlying net profit after tax came in at AUD $29.6 million, down AUD $4 million or 12.1% from last year's AUD $33.6 million. We thought it might be useful to show the impact of AASB 16 lease accounting standard on the profit and loss. Due to the fact that the group opened more stores this year, it does have a negative impact from a lease accounting standard on the group's net profit after tax. Excluding this standard, would bring last year's profit to AUD $32.7 million, and this year's to AUD $29.6 million, a AUD $3.1 million decline, or 9.5% below last year. Given the group's goal is to continue to expand the store network, we thought this was important for our listeners to know.
The group was pleased with the results. As you'll see from this presentation, a lot of progress has been made with our trade customers. We have a great network of stores across Australia. Our product development team evolves the range quickly, which means we can respond to changes in trends, technology, and demand in different categories. This has allowed us to grow our market share in both the retail and trade segments of our business. We've seen the consolidation of some larger brands in our industry, as well as some businesses exiting during these more difficult periods, and when we start to see a recovery in the retail consumer confidence, Beacon Lighting will be in a strong position to support both our retail and trade customers in-store and online.
If we move on to page six, we'll talk about some underlying financial highlights. As mentioned, we're very pleased with the record sales result and very strong gross profit margin. The group finished the year with AUD $95.7 million of inventory ready to service our trade and retail customers. This was a slight increase over the prior year. The supply chain and our manufacturers' performances have returned to a more normal state versus what we've seen in most recent years. The group was happy to finish out the year with AUD $46.2 million in cash, versus last year's AUD $20.7 million. Moving to page seven, we can review the operational highlights for the year. Most significantly, the Beacon Trade business surpassed AUD $100 million in sales for the first time this financial year.
This is a big milestone to achieve, beating our own internal goals for total trade sales. Trade sales as a percentage of relevant sales finished at an impressive 36.5%, which was again above our internal targets and puts us in a strong position to achieve our fifty-fifty trade-to-retail ratio by FY 2028. We continued our discipline around what has worked well for our trade customers by offering special trade prices, Beacon Cash rebates, and our innovative referral rewards program for our trade customers and their referred customers. Online sales had impressive growth, with our trade customers responding very strong to the Beacon Trade website, with a 47% increase in trade sales. And our retail customers headed back online after a bit of a dip last year, with a retail online sales increase of 11.2%.
Beacon International had a slow start to the financial year, but came home strong in the second half, with an 18.8% increase over the second half, and 7.7% increase for the full year. We achieved an overall record sales result for the full year from the international business. We're also very happy to open up seven new beautiful Beacon Lighting stores, ready to serve our retail and trade customers in new markets. I'll now hand you over to David Speirs, our CFO, to take you through the financial results in a little more detail.
Thank you, Glen. Unless otherwise stated, all the financial results discussed in the rest of the presentation were based on a 52-week underlying result for financial year 2024. Beacon Lighting was able to achieve a AUD $5.1 million sales increase to AUD $317.1 million. As Glen previously stated, it has been a challenging year for our retail customers. In this environment, achieving a company store comparative sales result in line with last year was a good reflection of the hard work of the Beacon Lighting store teams. The best comparative sales results were achieved in Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland. The continued growth in trade was one of the highlights of the financial year 2024 results.
Trade sales for our stores increased by 26.8%, and total trade sales percentage of relevant sales has now increased to 36.5%. In financial year 2024, the growth in trade sales helped to offset the decline in sales to our retail customers. Our Beacon Lighting Trade website continues to be embraced by our trade customers in increasing numbers. The secure website enables our trade customers the convenience of shopping twenty-four by seven, while still enjoying the special prices, rewards, and Beacon Cash rebates. In financial year 2024, online trade sales increased by 47%. It's pleasing to note there were remarkable record sales achieved by the Beacon Lighting Commercial and Beacon International businesses. Gross profit on page ten.
Beacon Lighting's gross profit was a highlight, and has increased to 68.9%, up 120 basis points from 67.7% last year. Despite the change in the sales mix towards trade, being vertically integrated and in introducing new products has helped support the gross profit margins. Beacon Lighting has designed and developed 500 new innovative products in Australia that continue to inspire and excite retail and trade customers. This has enabled Beacon Lighting to deliver outstanding value to our retail and trade customers, while still achieving a strong gross profit margin. The increased sales in our core trade products has enabled Beacon Lighting to establish new strategic partnerships with some of our trade suppliers. This has helped Beacon Lighting and our trade suppliers to grow our businesses together. This is reflecting the better buying power for Beacon Lighting, further supporting our margins.
Operating expenses on page eleven. Like many other businesses, Beacon Lighting has experienced inflationary cost pressures with a number of our expenses. During financial year 2024 , there were noticeable increases in property outgoings, power costs, IT costs, and other government charges. Beacon Lighting has continued to invest in marketing for all our businesses. There was a particular focus on trade and promoting the Beacon Trade brand across the country. Total marketing expenses increased by 9.9%. Selling and distribution expenses have increased by 6.1%, primarily a result of opening new stores and the increased cost of running existing stores. There's been an underlying increase in many of our general administration expenses, with a total increase of 8% compared to last year.
Depreciation has increased by 10.6%, in part the result of the recent investment in new stores and other business infrastructure. The most significant impact on depreciation has been the impact of AASB 16 lease accounting, which is detailed in Appendix Two of this presentation. Beacon Lighting opened seven new stores and relocated one store in financial year 2024. It should be noted that the most expensive day from a lease accounting perspective for a new store, is the first day that a store opens. Finance costs have increased by 25%, with the most significant influence on this increase related to interest costs and lease accounting. Overall, operating expenses have increased by 6.8% to be 42.8% of sales. Balance sheet.
Inclusive of the term deposit, Beacon Lighting has finished the year with a strong cash balance of AUD $46.2 million. With a more reliable supply chain, Beacon Lighting has maintained a high level of service to our customers, with a good in-stock position throughout the year. The inventory balance closed at AUD $95.7 million. Payables increased to AUD $28.1 million, and borrowings have closed with a balance of AUD $24.2 million. The balance of the right-of-use asset and lease liabilities have all increased, reflecting leases for new stores, exercise options, new leases, and the higher notional interest rates used for lease accounting. With the change in the balance sheet, Beacon Lighting has strengthened its net cash position. Cash flow on page 13.
Beacon Lighting's net operating cash flow has improved compared to its net profit after tax, due to the increase in customer receipts, increase in depreciation, support from payables, and the reduction in inventory in financial year 2024 compared to financial year 2023. Beacon Lighting has continued to invest in the future of the business with capital expenditure of AUD $9 million, and Beacon Lighting has also rewarded our shareholders with a cash dividend of AUD $13.5 million. Dividends on page 14. The Beacon Lighting Reinvestment Plan remains in place and continues to be available to all shareholders. Shares issued under this plan will be at a 5% discount to the market price.
The directors have declared a fully franked dividend of AUD $0.039 per share for half two, financial year 2024, compared to AUD $0.04 per share, which was declared last year. For financial year 2024, the directors of Beacon Lighting have either paid or declared a fully franked dividend of AUD $0.079 per share, compared to AUD $0.083 per share last year. The dividend payout ratio for financial year 2024 was 69.2%, which is at the top end of the ratio's guidance range, which is 50%-60% of net profit after tax. Thank you. I will now pass you back to Glen.
Thanks, David. Let's move to page fifteen, where we'll outline our strategic pillars of growth. Many of the listeners will be familiar with our four strategic pillars of growth. These have not changed over the past few years and used continuously across the business to keep all team members accountable and aligned with our longer-term goals. These pillars include, firstly, our stores, where we continue to evolve our store experience, creating hubs of activity for our retail and trade customers to learn and aspire to better lighting solutions. We solidify our market standing by offering exciting products and lighting design in our industry-leading showrooms, with a significant store rollout potential, providing future growth into the years ahead.
Our trade growth pillar, and our goal is to partner with our trade, which includes electricians, builders, interior designers, and architects, to help them and their clients benefit from greater lighting, ceiling fans, and electrical accessories for their projects. Our e-commerce websites provide a seamless customer experience for both retail and trade customers. They can interact with us how they want, at any time, and have their orders delivered to their home or site quickly, and our new businesses and international opportunities. We're developing growth businesses that align with our strengths and leverage the product designs, the products that we design here and develop, designed and developed here in Australia. These products are sold through our international businesses to countries worldwide. These pillars remain the foundation of our strategy, anchoring us in delivering customer-centric results.
Returning our attention to page sixteen, we'll provide you with an update on our first growth pillar, which is our core store operation. Beacon Lighting is uniquely positioned in the specialty lighting, ceiling fan, globes, and electrical accessories category. With now one hundred and twenty-six stores spanning all states and territories, bolstered by robust logistics infrastructure and a vertically integrated supply chain encompassing design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales, we maintain a leading role within our categories. Our commitment to delivering value to our store customers is epitomized by the engaging store experience we offer, industry-leading products, the expertise in our service, and the convenience of click and collect and online shopping. During the year, we had a substantial new store opening program, with seven new stores and the relocation of our Cranbourne store....
These new stores open the Beacon Lighting business to new markets where there was little exposure in the past. Our future total network plan remains at 195 stores. Company store comparative sales were in line with last year's results, which, given the macroeconomic conditions, was a solid result. We've seen flat comparative results persist for 12 months now, at a point where our consumer confidence is at record lows. For us, it is all about growing our market share and offering our customers great value from new product introductions. We're confident that with a return to a more positive consumer, the stores will also see a recovery in comparative sales results. Understanding lighting is a unique skill. During the year, we completed 2,600 new lighting projects through our lighting design studios. This was an increase of 10.3% over last year.
To ensure our team are experts in their field, we have developed a residential lighting design micro-credential course with Bond University and the Illuminating Engineering Society, to ensure we provide our retail and trade customers with the best and most advanced lighting outcomes. Innovation and the evolution of Beacon's product range are keys to our success. During the year, the group released 500 new products, all designed and developed here in Australia. During the year, the group grew our VIP Club to over 1 million customers. This allows us to tailor specific product offerings and services for the benefit of our valued VIP customers and provides our VIP customers with greater discounts across certain categories. On page 17, we'll provide an update on the trade growth pillar. Building meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships with our trade customers is our number one priority across the group.
We continue to innovate how we interact with our trade, refining new initiatives and benefits for our trade customers and their customers. Trade benefits such as special pricing, Beacon Cash rebates, new trade lines, new merchandising in-store, our innovative referral program, and others, have all contributed to our team's success in building deeper connections with our active trade customers. We now implement trade rooms in all new stores as they are showing a good return on investment, and we retrofit these rooms into existing stores where the space is available. During the year, we increased the number of members of our trade program by 17%. Total trade sales exceeded a key milestone of AUD $100 million and grew total trade sales in stores by 26.8%. Our commercial business, which mostly sells to the volume residential builders, increased sales by a solid 14.3%.
The group finished the year with trade sales ratio to relevant sales of 36.5%, which, as mentioned, was above our internal targets. We're well on our way towards our goal of a fifty/fifty trade to retail sales ratio by 2028. On page 18, we'll focus on our e-commerce growth pillar. Beacon Lighting now operates 16 websites, catering to various brands and sales channels within the group. Our core websites are beaconlighting.com.au and beacontrade.com.au. Online sales for the year recovered well from last year, with retail sales online growing by 11.2% and now representing 11.8% of total retail sales. Our Beacon Trade website experienced exceptional growth once again, with online trade sales increasing by 47% and visitations by 42%.
The trade website is proving popular due to the ease of getting what the trade wants at their prices and delivered free to site, in many cases, on the same day. The other benefit is that their purchases are all electronically filed on their own web account, making it easier for them to bill and to reconcile. Moving to page nineteen, we'll turn our attention to the final strategic growth pillar, being new businesses. Our new businesses offer exciting opportunities for diversification beyond our retail, trade, and e-commerce core. These emerging ventures allow us to invest, learn, develop, and foster growth for the future. Beacon International, which predominantly sells ceiling fans, had a very strong second half as the Northern Hemisphere entered its summer season.
Second half sales increased by 18.8% over the prior period, and the international business grew its total sales for the year by 7.7%. The results for the Beacon International business were not consistent in the regions where we operate. The Hong Kong business, which sells mostly in container lots to countries worldwide, was the most successful, with strong sales growth. Our European operation had moderate growth, whereas our U.S. business proved more challenging with a sales decline. Custom Lighting, Masson For Light, Connected Light Solutions, and Light Source Solutions found it hard to cycle the growth that they achieved last year and all had sales declines. The group currently holds a 50% stake in seven retail property sites within Australia, aligned with our strategy to enhance ownership of our operational sites. Sustainability on page twenty.
Beacon Lighting Group believes that businesses can play a significant role in positively influencing the environment. As the leading lighting supplier in Australia, we have spent the last decade committed to reducing our environmental impact through various operational initiatives. Our sustainability objectives focus on three key areas: they are people, product, and planet. Some of the milestones worth mentioning are, under the people area, it would be that we believe in our team and their career advancements, preferring to promote and build strong careers from within. Throughout the year, we were able to promote 138 team members. The products that we bring to market can have a massive impact on our customers' energy use. With the development of light-emitting diodes, we have reduced energy usage in lighting by over 80%.
And for the planet, Beacon was one of the first retail and trade businesses to adopt large-scale solar systems to offset our energy use. We are proud to now have sixty-four large-scale solar systems across our store network. For more details and commitments to sustainability, please refer to our annual report and our corporate website. We can review the financial year 2025 Beacon Lighting Group outlook on page 22. Trading momentum from FY 2024 has continued into FY 2025 . Partnering with electricians, builders, architects, and interior designers continues to be our number one priority for the group. Beacon Trade's positive sales momentum has also continued into FY 2025 . Our commitment to our team continues, with a new program of trade sales training commencing across the group in August 2024 .
After a strong positive vote in favor of our new enterprise agreement from our team, we will implement the EA benefits, including the new Beacon Team Share Plan in financial year 2025. Our product design team, based here in Melbourne, have planned an exciting release of new products, both for retail and trade customers in the year ahead. The group looks forward to opening five new stores in FY 2025 at Auburn, Port Stephens, Shepparton, Chatswood, and Ballina, and we'll relocate the New South Wales support office and commercial operations to Auburn, and our Bendigo store will be developed into a new site, which will serve that market well. We continue to pursue growth in the international markets with Australian designed fans and lighting products in North America, Asia, and Europe.
I'd like to say thank you to our team and customers in FY 2024, and we're looking forward to an exciting year ahead. Thank you for your time, and I'll now hand you back to Ian Robinson to address any questions you have.
Thank you, Glen and David, for your presentations. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now open for questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Alexander Mees with Morgans.
Thanks so much. Well done, team, on a very resilient performance. Just wondering about retail demand. You obviously positioned the company well to benefit from recovery in demand. Just wonder if you're seeing any green shoots of recovery at this stage?
Yeah, thanks, Alex. Look, I think what we've said in the outlook statement is we're seeing continuation of what we're seeing from FY 2024 . Look, we're reasonably optimistic. When you have a look at the graphs around consumer sentiment, it's about as low as it gets, and we've performed relatively well in that environment, albeit we would like a little bit more growth. I think, you know, things will have to recover as we start to see stabilization or reduction in interest rates. I think we'll continue to see some stronger performance from the consumer. In the interim, we're obviously focused on our trade customer and doing what we can to activate as many sales for our general consumers. But yeah, we are optimistic.
We've positioned the business in the right area, and I think we've also seen quite a number of our competitors in quite a bit of pressure, and that will obviously allow us to grow our market share during these tougher times for the consumer out there in Australia.
Alex, I think another way of looking at it is really to say that we're less concerned about deterioration of sales, and we're looking forward to the possibility of increased momentum in the sales.
Yep.
Excellent. Thank you. And then just on gross margins, a really good performance on gross margins, given the change in mix, with trade growing as strongly as it is. Just wondering, what's caused that? Is it simply better buying power, as you mentioned earlier, lower freight costs? And I suppose, can you sustain those margins into FY 2025?
Yeah, I think that's right. We've had a relatively stable Aussie to US dollar conversion, which has helped. We've been negotiating, you know, pretty strongly with some of the suppliers that we have, particularly on trade products, where we're going through a lot more quantity than what we probably were over the last couple of years. So that has definitely helped from a cost point of view. And, you know, the pricing stability coming out of China is relatively good as well, so we're not seeing lots of fluctuations there. We will potentially see a little bit of impact from freight cost increases, but I don't see that being a major hurdle for us. I think the other thing that we've been concentrating on across the group is pricing disciplines.
We really focus on, we either have a promotional price for our retail customers, or we have a trade price for our trade customers, and really, the discipline around sticking to those prices has been a lot stronger adhered to over the last 12 months to 18 months, so that's definitely helped our margins as well.
Great. So just maybe sneak one more quick one in, just with regard to the international business. Great to see Hong Kong and obviously worldwide sales doing as well as they are. Just wondering about the US, though. What's going on to cause that still to be negative?
Yeah, it's still a pretty tough market in the US, and, like you said, you know, we're really pleased with the Hong Kong business and even Europe, you know, they had growth there, but the US business is still particularly tough. We've seen reductions in sales, really in that business for about two years now, and a lot of it has been around the e-commerce channels. So we are starting to see slight recoveries in that. We've got a new team member on board that's gonna look after the retail channel for us, so that our e-commerce person can focus really just on the e-commerce area of the business. And we've really only just started our push into Home Depot as well.
So we've just got the trial rolling out at the moment in August for some of our ceiling fans into Home Depot. So there are still a lot of things to be positive about, but it certainly has been pretty tough over the last 12-18 months for that one section of the international business.
Awesome. Thanks, and, well done again.
Thanks, Alex.
Your next question comes from Ksenia Chatayeva with Jarden.
Morning, team. Thanks for taking my question. Could you please quantify cost increases moving forward? So where do you still expect pressure, and anything you can do to offset that?
Cost pressures? I think that's you, David.
Thank you, Glen. Yeah, I think we're still seeing some cost pressures around the place, but we are looking at at some things we can manage. Obviously, you know, the store teams, we're very focused on, you know, trying to get productivity gains out of the stores, and that's by removing some of their workload, and we've done that in parts of their work. You know, we're also looking at things like insurance renewals and really trying to be a lot smarter about what we do reinsure and what we actually sort of manage the risks ourselves. So there's those sorts of things that we do focus on, and also rostering.
That's a continual focus within the group, you know, about making sure that our store teams are there to serve our customers when they need to be served, and not another time of the day, so there's some of the things that we are working very hard on to help manage our expenses moving forward.
I think, Ksenia, we've sort of seen a bit of a step up in certain areas across our cost side of the business. What we usually find is they step up and then they stabilize. I wouldn't expect to probably see some of the big step-ups that we have seen over the last eighteen months to two years to continue into FY 2025 . You know, inflation is getting a bit more under control. Expectations are that, you know, we should be able to bargain a bit harder on certain things from a cost side, and that's what we'll be intending to do for the year ahead. We do need to see, you know, some of those costs that are coming through reduce or at least stabilize. I would expect that to happen throughout the year.
Right. Thank you. And now on trade growth you had, how much of that is driven by club members versus repeat, and repeat customers versus new?
Yeah, so I think our trade member growth was 17%, so member growth was up 17%. But, you know, let's take, say, in-store growth was up 26%. So we are getting more active customers, shopping more frequently and spending at higher rates, and that has been a big focus of ours over the past 12 months, with what we call internally our SMAC recipe. It's a, it's a discipline around how we contact customers and, and follow them up.
But also coming into this financial year, 2025 , we've got a real, an additional discipline around our unique active customers, and that's an area of focus for us, to make sure that, you know, we are still growing our membership base, but also, making sure we're servicing our customers and keeping them as active as possible to month.
Yeah, and I think you mentioned you released around 500 products this year, and is that like a new normal? Is that the same amount you expect to release next year?
Yeah. Generally speaking, we're usually above 500. So it was about an average sort of level, but we are looking at this year probably having about 650 new products for FY 2025. A lot of these products have already been worked on for the last sort of 12 months or so, so we've got a pretty clear indication of what the pipeline looks like. And that's exciting for us because it cuts across both retail and trade customers, helps support those margins, and brings something new to the market that's unique, differentiated from our competitors, and obviously, you know, it's a new and unique product. We can usually excite our customers and achieve some decent margins out of those products.
Your next question comes from Aryan Norozi with Barrenjoey.
Hi, team. How are you all? Just first one for me on the gross margin, side. I mean, the second half 2024 was about 68.6%. You sort of alluded to some of the moving parts in fiscal 2025, but I think last result you sort of mentioned 68%-69% is the way you wanna manage that gross margin moving forward. Is that still the aim, like 68%-69% for fiscal 2025 and 2026?
Yeah, I think what we're seeing at the moment, Ari, is that we're able to manage it in that area. You know, nothing's guaranteed, of course, in life, but we have grown our trade base significantly, and you know, if we continue to see a relatively stable US dollar, freight costs don't impact us greatly, then that's what we would probably intend on looking to try to achieve.
Great. And the trade sales that are coming through, what gross... Like, can you just run us through just the difference in gross margin between those trade sales and retail? 'Cause trade's obviously dilutionary, but not as much as what people might think. Maybe just that dilution and how we should think about that moving forward as you grow into trade accessories and other categories, please.
Yeah, you're right. I mean, look, I think a lot of people think that trade sales are necessarily gonna be having a big hit on your margin, and we have always said if we're selling more cable products, you know, basic trade lines, then it might affect our margin a bit more than what we've probably seen so far. I guess the unique thing about Beacon Lighting is that we are a vertically integrated business, and the price that we are selling are not available anywhere else in Australia. So those same products, some of them are sold to retail customers, some of them are sold to trade customers, some are sold exclusively to trade customers, and we're able to achieve good margins even from our trade customers.
Without going explicitly into the exact numbers, you're only talking, you know, maybe a couple of hundred basis points below where the average retail margin would be.
I think it's been a bit of a surprise, you know, really, for us, that the trade margins have been higher. And part of the recognition of that is that the trade will buy product that's better quality, and more exciting as well. So they're not just buying generic, low-margin product, but they embrace the full range.
Yep, perfect. And just in terms of the comps, I appreciate, apologies if this is short term, but is it fair to say the comps that you're cycling for the rest of this half get tougher? Because I recall last year you had obviously a really good ceiling fan season, and actually things picked up in October to the mid-December. Is that a fair comment, or is it just massive, like, all numbers are all skewed because of timing of COVID and whatnot?
I don't think we've had a good ceiling fan season for quite some time.
Yeah, it wasn't super exciting last year from a ceiling fan perspective. It was okay, though, and probably it was better than the prior year. We started out last year, FY 2023, Q1, pretty soft. And then we definitely did improve in the Q2, so that's what we will be going through and cycling that again.
Okay. 'Cause I think, is it fair to say, like, the same time last year, in July, August 2023, you were cycling sort of negative 5% comps? Negative five, I think. Is that, is that fair? Like, if and then you closed the year half at flat. So that, is, is that what you're sort of referring to or?
Yeah. I think July and August started out pretty soft last year.
Yeah.
Yep. Without going into specifics, and then things improved a bit in September, October. November was okay, and December was okay.
Okay. Perfect. Last one, please. Just on the trade sales, what did the total trade sales grow by in FY 2024? I think you mentioned trade store sales grew 27%, and I think in first half of 2024, the total trade pie grew 23%. I'm just trying to make sure we're using the right numbers. Are they, are those two numbers comparable or, yeah?
Yeah. Actually, I've got it here.
Got it?
Yeah. Total trade sales, in which includes all relevant sales, increased by 21.6%. It does-
Perfect. Okay, so that's comparable to the 23% in the first half of 2024.
That's right. Yeah. That's total relevant sales. That's right. Yeah.
Yeah. Perfect. That is really good. Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Ari.
Your next question comes from Stewart Oldfield with Field Research.
Good day. Yeah, just a couple of questions. So Glen made reference to, you know, consumer sentiment being as low as it can get, and there's been some businesses exiting in the industry and some consolidations. So can you give us sort of what sort of market share you think might be up for grabs? You expect more exits from the industry?
Yeah, I think we're seeing it pretty tough out there at the moment, both across the retail sector and also the trade sector. There's been, you know, a fairly significant trade supplier go under just in recent months, and look, I don't know what their total sales were. They were unlisted business, so I'm not sure what's up for grabs in that business, but we have also seen, you know, smaller independent lighting stores finding it particularly hard and deciding to exit the market as well, so you know, there's small bits and pieces around that we can, you know, hopefully grab a bit more market share, and these are the times to do it, obviously.
It's in a really upbeat market. It's hard to grow market share, but you know, we're in a really strong position where we've got a dominant you know, store network of 126 stores, and you know, with our relatively small market share of trade, that's a great opportunity for us. I think we've probably seen over the last few years that some of the trade operators, and when I talk about trade, I'm talking mostly about electrical wholesalers, they had been performing pretty well over the last couple of years, but they've definitely, from what we understand, seen a bit of a pullback over the past year in FY 2024, and we've still been able to advance our trade sales quite significantly.
And we are a small player, but, you know, hopefully taking some of that market share.
There's been-
Got it.
Quite a substantial change in the wholesaling operation as well. There's been, I think, over the last three years, quite a lot of consolidation in that supply channel, which is really in the basics area, which really opens it up for us, you know, with having a more exciting range that they continue really just to focus on the generic low-cost margin stuff where, you know, where we can get the extra sales by having more exciting products, which generally give us a higher gross margin.
Yeah. So that specifically is a couple of the larger importers were purchased by another group here, a wholesale group that sells predominantly to Bunnings, which actually probably suits us quite well. It takes out these other importers that would usually have sold to independent lighting stores and as soon as they start to sell prominently to Bunnings, the independent lighting stores don't really want to support them, and the electrical wholesalers don't really want to support them. So, you know, the options for lighting from a wholesale point of view have become quite a bit narrower over the last couple of years.
Got it. Got it. And just the hundred and ninety-five store count target, you know, you last reviewed it in March last year. Australia's population is heading for a million additional people by now, so would you review that target at some point?
Yeah, we normally would review that every, probably two or three years, but every time we do the research, we always have more stores, again, because of population growth and also, I think, the propensity for the homeowner to spend in their home in the lighting category. So that always grows every time we do the research.
The population growth by itself is equivalent to about five new stores worth per year. So, you know, it's, you know, population growth is important for a lot of things-
Yeah
for us, for new stores.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks, Stuart.
Your next question comes from Emily Reynolds with Citi.
Good morning, guys. Thanks so much for taking my question so just on a similar vein to what you were just talking about then in terms of sites, you've noted in your presentation a handful of new store locations for the year ahead. We just want a quick comment on, firstly, site availability more broadly, and secondly, if there's been any thought or consideration in exploring trade-only stores to kind of remove that need for larger format retail sites?
I think we've been very, you know, we've done very well, you know, to be able to put four to seven stores up this year, plus one relocation, and you know, we're very comfortable with being able to put five stores or six stores up per year, and we've definitely got five for next year, for this financial year, and we've got strong indications that we'll be able to, you know, continue with that kind of rollout for 2026 as well, so look, it's not easy, but the sites are available, and I think the other big change for Beacon Lighting is that we've really lifted the brand presentation by the quality of the new store locations we've got. These are generally something that's quite unique in architectural presentation.
You know, you have to do something exciting to get the customers into your store and get your trade and your interior designers and architects and people to get excited about the product. I think we've advanced the brand substantially by a better quality of presentation.
Yeah, I think what we've also learned, Emily, is that you know, the sites are available. We've got great contacts across the industry to be able to learn where those new sites are popping up, and when people might be vacating sites, we can go in there. But we've also, we also know that Beacon Lighting can do standalone sites. We don't have to be in centers. And some of our most successful stores are actually in standalone sites, where the rent cost is usually a lot lower. And that's where you then start to open up your mind to whether, in the future, we'll have, as you mentioned, trade-specific sites, or it might be a trade-specific site, but still has a little bit of a retail-type front on it as well.
That's definitely something in our consideration at the moment. You know, some of the costs to go into some of these large format retail centers have increased quite a bit over the last couple of years, and knowing what we can get out of a standalone site and a lower rental cost, it definitely makes for a pretty exciting option for us.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Emily.
There are no further questions at this time. I will hand back to Mr. Robinson for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your interest in Beacon Lighting, and we look forward to updating you further, in the future.
Thank you.