Despite a better UK performance in its third quarter, Carpetright's fortunes continue to flag, dragged down by hostile conditions in its European markets.
The results, issued in a trading update for the 13 weeks to January 25, have produced the second profit warning from Europe's leading floorcoverings retailer in four months.

Like-for-like sales in the UK increased by 1.9%, while total sales were up 0.6%. However, in local currency terms, like-for-like sales in the rest of Carpetright's European markets - the Netherlands, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland - slumped by 7.7%, while total sales dropped 7.5%. After the impact of currency movements this translates to a 6.3% decrease in total sales.

Executive chairman Lord Harris said: "Tough trading conditions persisted in the UK in the third quarter of our financial year but our self-help measures have enabled us to grow sales within a difficult market.

"Trading in our Rest of Europe business continues to be dominated by the extremely difficult economic conditions in the Netherlands.

"In view of the market conditions, predicting the final outcome for the year with any accuracy is difficult and the result for the year will depend on our performance in the final quarter.

"With a further weakening of the market in the Netherlands, we now expect underlying pre-tax profits for the full year will be below the lower end of the current range of market expectations."