LONDON (Reuters) - British retailer Dixons Carphone <DC.L> said profit would fall by 21 percent in the current year, as its new chief executive warned that he needed to fix problems at the company and close shops at a time of a contracting UK electrical market.
Dixons Carphone said it expected headline pretax profit for its 2018/19 financial year to be around 300 million pounds ($400 million), some 21 percent behind the 382 million pounds it is forecasting for the 12 months ended April 28 2018.
Chief Executive Alex Baldock, who joined two months ago from online shop Shop Direct, said that he planned to cut costs to help the mobile phone and electricals retailer recover and had already started a process to simplify its processes.
As part of his cost saving measures, he said he planned to close 92 Carphone Warehouse standalone stores this year to help improve gross margins.
"Though there's plenty to fix, it's all fixable," he said in a statement on Tuesday.
The forecast for 2018/19 profit represents a significant downgrade from a current consensus forecast of 387 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters data.
($1 = 0.7509 pounds)
(Reporting by Sarah Young, Editing by Paul Sandle)
