{"id":23012,"date":"2026-03-02T14:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/23012\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T14:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:11:08","slug":"dfs-furniture-stands-out-in-retail-sector-says-ubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/23012\/","title":{"rendered":"DFS Furniture stands out in retail sector, says UBS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b42bc0900fe12524ea0a656e71fdb77a.jpeg\" alt=\"DFS Furniture stands out in retail sector, says UBS\" loading=\"eager\" height=\"444\" width=\"960\" class=\"yf-lglytj  loaded\"\/> DFS Furniture stands out in retail sector, says UBS Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock      <\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\"><a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/DFS.l\" data-ylk=\"slk:DFS Furniture PLC;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DFS Furniture PLC<\/a>\u00a0stands out in a weak UK retail market after beating expectations with a recent first-half update, according to UBS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Gross sales rose 8.7% year on year in the first half of the 2026 financial year, ahead of consensus forecasts of 5%, as growth was driven by conversion of a strong order bank and steady demand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Order intake increased 2.3% despite tough comparisons, implying market share gains in a broadly flat UK upholstery market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">UBS,\u00a0which rates the shares a &#8216;buy&#8217; with a 230p price target, said this performance contrasts with recent profit warnings and cautious commentary from retailers including Card Factory, Greggs and Dunelm, reflecting subdued consumer sentiment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Looking ahead, the Swiss bank said: &#8220;we expect mid-term growth to be driven by an eventual recovery in consumer sentiment, an improved product mix as Sofology [the higher average order value\u00a0business], increases as a % of sales, and continued brand and store expansion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">UBS Evidence Lab data shows 12-month rolling unique visitor growth at Sofology of 17% in January, suggesting ongoing share gains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DFS Furniture stands out in retail sector, says UBS Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock DFS Furniture PLC\u00a0stands&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[14793,14791,10964,223,1966,14792],"class_list":{"0":"post-23012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ubs","8":"tag-card-factory","9":"tag-dfs-furniture","10":"tag-retail-sector","11":"tag-ubs","12":"tag-ubs-proactive","13":"tag-uk-retail-market"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}