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The hobby specialist, Hornby has said it expects to see between 15 to 20 per cent higher sales in the financial year ending March 31st, stating that the “transformation at Hornby continues to accelerate.”
The model train company has issued early reports that its third quarter of the financial year, the period including the Christmas shopping season, saw sales ahead of the same period for the year prior.
While the firm still has to traverse the remaining few weeks under the current tighter Covid-19 restrictions, chief executive, Lyndon Davies has said that “it’s hard not to want to spread a little ‘good news’ amongst all the bad.
“The transformation at Hornby continues to accelerate, this is not time for braking, we must now accelerate upwards through the gears.”
Towards the end of 2020, the company announced that it was to temporarily cease shipping items to the EU while ports across the south of England and around the world dealt with backlogs caused by pandemic restrictions.
With those backlogs now seemingly cleared, Hornby expects to start shipping to Europe again “imminently.”
“January to date has been a slower start than we would have like as we contend with tighter Covid-19 restrictions within the warehouse and the impact of courier companies pausing collections bound for Europe due to Brexit backlogs,” said the firm.
With its digital ‘Toy Fair’ previews now well under way, Hornby has reported that feedback has been “encouraging” and that it has been “buoyed by the levels of interest.”
