JB Hi-Fi to open 50 new stores

JB Hi-Fi will open 50 new stores as it grows in home appliances, education and enterprise.

In its annual report, JB Hi-Fi revealed it is going after the $4.6 billion home appliances market with the opening of 50 Home stores over three years.

JB Hi-Fi will open a dozen new stores in FY14. The state-by-state breakdown of these 12 new outlets will see three in New South Wales, three in Victoria, one each in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania as well as two elsewhere in Australia and one in New Zealand.

The retailer had already converted four existing stores to concept Home stores in December of 2012 as part of a trial. Early success led to the conversion of four additional stores before the financial year's end.

"We anticipate converting 10 additional existing stores in FY14 and see the potential for a total of approximately 50 Home stores over the next three years," according to the company.

The report also gave an update into JB Hi-Fi's push into the enterprise IT space following the February acquisition of a majority stake in Network Neighborhood.

The Melbourne-based IT company, which serviced the education, government and business sectors, helped JB Hi-Fi to 68.7 percent growth in commercial, though "off a relatively small base", the report noted.

A bigger push into enterprise IT is expected in the coming year. The report said JB Hi-FI was planning "ongoing expansion of the size and experience of the JB Hi-Fi Commercial & Education team in order to further drive sales over the next two to three years and allow expansion into new markets".

Beyond the home and enterprise IT strategies, JB Hi-Fi hopes a new website will also bolster its consumer revenue.

"JB Hi-Fi continues to leverage the benefits of its bricks-and-mortar locations combined with a strong online presence.  It is intended that a new JB Hi-Fi website will be launched in the first half of FY14."

The retailer's online sales grew by 29.8 percent in FY13. An average of 1.15 million people visited JB Hi-Fi's website in 2013, which represent an increase of 24.1 percent over the previous year.

Interestingly details on the company's online content portal, JB Hi-Fi Now, were scarce. The company added eBooks to its digital store in FY13, but in spite of this it referred to the Now portal as a matter of staying "relevant" in the age of digital downloads.

JB Hi-Fi is projecting for FY14 an increase in sales of six to eight percent, compared to its 5.8 percent sales growth in the past financial year.