Car dealership Inchcape said on Friday that its full-year pre-tax profit is set to be “significantly ahead” of market consensus of £216m after a better-than-expected performance in the first half.
The company said that since its first-quarter update at the end of April, encouraging trends across the business have continued and it has benefited both from an uptick in demand and margin resilience.
Inchcape cautioned that there is still a high level of uncertainty about the second half, both in terms of the pandemic and issues relating to supply due to shortages of semi-conductors, which have had a limited impact to date. Nevertheless, it expects the strong first half performance to underpin its full-year results.
