B&Q owner Kingfisher blames rain for fall in sales

Kingfisher is Europe's biggest home improvement retailer

B&Q owner Kingfisher has blamed wet weather in April for a fall in its quarterly sales.

Like-for-like sales - which remove the impact of any new store openings - were down 12% at B&Q in the UK and Republic of Ireland in the 13 weeks to 28 April, compared with a year earlier.

Sales by the same measure at Kingfisher's French operations were up 0.7%.

Kingfisher said April's rain worsened already tough trading conditions.

The firm's like-for-like sales across all of its global markets were down 4.8%.

Kingfisher chief executive Ian Cheshire said: "We anticipated the first quarter would be challenging, compared with last year's strong growth which was boosted by favourable spring weather and public holidays.

"But an extremely wet April this year in the UK and France compounded the difficulty, adversely impacting sales of outdoor and seasonal categories."