YORK-based music equipment retailer Gear4Music has reported widening losses and falling sales but says a turnaround plan is working.

Releasing its interim figures this week for the six months ending September 30 , the company reported a tough retail market, especially in its European markets.

Revenues fell 6% to £62.6m compared with £66.3m in the same period last year. A pre-tax loss of £1.6m was recorded compared with £1.1m in the same period of 2022.

Andrew Wass, chief executive officer, said: “We are pleased to have made good progress during the period against our strategic objectives of increasing gross margins, reducing our cost base, and further enhancing our customer proposition with the launch of our Second-Hand system in Europe.

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“Although consumer demand has remained subdued this year due to the weaker environment, our FY24 H1 revenues were 27% higher than our pre-Covid FY20 H1 revenues, and we remain confident in our long-term growth strategy.

“The decisive actions we have taken will ensure the business can return to stronger profitable growth by the next financial year, as we leverage efficiencies driven by AI, build upon our platform for growth, and diversify our channels to market.”

Gear4Music said it had also delivered ‘cost reduction measures’ to deliver annual savings of £4m.

As the Press recently reported, Gear4Music has reduced staff numbers by around 100, or a fifth, over the past year. Some 40 were from redundancies and the rest from ‘natural churn,’ the company told the Press.

Before publishing its interim results this week, Gear4Music said it had been expecting revenues of £161.7m, adjusted EBITDA of £9.8m and adjusted profit before tax of £1.2m for the year ending 31 March 2024.

Though its profit expectations remain the same, Gear4music said it was “moderating” its revenue expectation for the year to £144m to reflect sales run rates and actions taken to prioritise profits over growth.

Mr Wass added: “We are well prepared for our seasonal peak trading period with a range of recently developed great value music products.”