Just fresh from a recent major
motivational conference for its
extensive team of franchisees (where they were inspired by AFL icon Wayne Bennett, pictured), Australia's leading consumer electronics group, Harvey Norman reported a 4% increase in first half sales to the Australian Securities Exchange last Friday.

Sales for the six months to December 31 were $3.27 billion compared with $3.15 billion in the same period last year. Like-for-like sales for the six months ended December 31, 2009, when compared to the same period ended December 31, 2008. However, sales for just the Australian Harvey Norman outlets rose 6.4% over the half year and were up 5.6% on a like-for-like basis.

Expectations met for January
In a statement released to the Australian Securities Exchange, Harvey CFO Chris Mentis said that, "Sales for the month of January have met managements' expectations and we remain cautiously optimistic about the next five months despite the positive inpact of the cash stimulus injected into the economy last year."

Meanwhile, preliminary unaudited accounts for the period July 1-December 31, 2009 indicate that profit before tax and minority interests for the consoliadted enitity for the six months ended Decemebr 31, 2009, should exceed that of the corresponding period for the previous year, by in excess of 40%.