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Sales at Halford in the six months to 27 September were broadly flat. The group said it was on track to deliver £30m of targeted full year savings to mitigate £35m of expected inflation.
The company has two areas of business retail and Autocentres, the latter accounting for 40% of revenues.
Autocentres delivered like for like sales growth of 0.8% against an exceptionally strong period in the prior year.
Halford said it had seen “strong growth” in services, maintenance and repair (SMR) work but tyres remained challenging with price-conscious customers trading down into budget ranges.
It said high levels of technician wage inflation persisted.
It said despite pockets of improving consumer sentiment, the short-term outlook remained uncertain, particularly for big ticket, discretionary purchases.
Graham Stapleton, CEO of Halfords, said: “While consumers remain cautious in their discretionary spending compounded by uncertainty around the contents of the upcoming Autumn Budget, we have continued to focus on controlling the controllables and I am pleased with our performance in the first half of FY25.
“Our services and B2B-led strategy has supported Halfords’ growth despite two of our core markets remaining significantly below pre-Covid levels, enabling us to absorb more than £130m of inflation since FY20 while maintaining a strong balance sheet.”