WHSmith has warned the impact of Covid-19 could wipe up to £130m of its full-year revenues and £40m off underlying profit.
It said it had been monitoring the financial impact of the virus across both its travel and high street businesses since the outbreak began. In Asia Pacific, which accounts for approximately 5% of travel’s revenue, WHsmith said it had seen a significant impact on the business since February.
Over the past fortnight the retailer has seen this extend outside of Asia Pacific with a material reduction in passenger numbers at airports in the UK, which accounts for around 60% of its travel business’s revenue.
WHSmith said it believes the effects of Covid-19 would result in a reduction in its expectations for revenue and profit across the travel business for the second half.
For UK travel, it expects revenues for the six months to be down by 15%.
Over the longer term, it said it remained “confident in the strategy” and believed that the group was well positioned to benefit from the “normalisation and growth of the global travel market”.
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