A York-based company that is the UK’s largest retailer of musical instruments and music equipment says the launch of a website selling secondhand items is proving successful.

Gear4Music (Holdings), which operates from Holgate Park Drive on Clifton Moor, also says it expects to meet consensus market expectations of £161.2m and EBITDA of £10m in the year ending March 31 2024.

At its recent AGM , chief executive officer Andrew Wass said he was pleased to report trading during the financial year was in line with the expecations of the company’s board.

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He continued: “As highlighted in our statement on 20 June 2023, we are prioritising increasing gross margins and cost base reduction to improve profitability, ahead of revenue growth. We are pleased with the progress being made in these areas, which has included driving significant cost efficiencies in our software development unit.

“Our recently launched second-hand system is trading well and continues to show signs of being a long-term growth driver, having successfully facilitated several thousand trade-ins since its March 2023 debut.

“During the last few weeks, we have also launched the system into our European markets, and we are confident it will evolve to become a meaningful component of the Group’s future revenue portfolio.

He added: “We are well prepared for the upcoming seasonal peak trading period, backed by a robust level of working capital availability, and the Board retains its confidence in our medium and longer-term profitable growth strategy.

“The Group intends to release a trading update for the six-month period ending September 30 on October 19, followed by half-year results on November 14, at which time further details of improved gross margins and the underlying cost reductions achieved will be shared.”

In addition to a York head office, Gear4Music also has a distribution centre and showrooms in the city, as well as at Bacup, Lancashire. Overseas, it also has distribution centres in Sweden, Germany, Ireland and Spain, and showrooms in Sweden and Germany.

The Group sells own-brand musical instruments and music equipment alongside premium third-party brands including Fender, Yamaha and Roland, to customers ranging from beginners to musical enthusiasts and professionals, in the UK, Europe and the Rest of the World.

Having developed its own e-commerce platform, with multilingual, multicurrency websites delivering to over 190 countries, Gear4Music says it continues to build its overseas presence.