JB Hi Fi – a difficult environment with negative like-for-like sales over recent months

JB Hi Fi – a difficult environment with negative like-for-like sales over recent months

Despite the utterings from our senior politicians when discussing Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this figure takes neither the rate of inflation, nor our population growth into consideration.

When our real GDP per capita for the June 2026 Quarter is released on Wednesday 2 September, I am concerned we will see another negative number, delivering lower living standards for Australians, as experienced over recent years.

Graph 1: Australian GDP Growth

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, www.macrobusiness.com.au

This negativity caught up with one of Australia’s great focused retailers this week, JB Hi Fi (ASX:JBH). JB Hi Fi, who have a total of 355 stores, reported a total group revenue of $11.06 billion for the 2026 financial year (FY26). Their share price declined 11 per cent to $73, valuing the company at $8.0 billion.

Like GDP per capita, I have detailed the percentage change in like-for-like sales, which excludes new store sales, for each of the March 2026 quarter, the June 2026 quarter and for the month of July 2026, across JB Hi Fi’s four major divisions. See Table 1 below.

These are JB HiFi Australia (67 per cent of revenue), JB Hi Fi New Zealand (4 per cent of revenue), The Good Guys (27 per cent of revenue) and E&S, the high-end kitchen, bathroom and laundry specialists, where JB Hi Fi has a 75 per cent equity stake (2 per cent of revenue).

Table 1. JB Hi Fi’s division like for like sales growth (%)

The table above shows JB Hi Fi’s total like for like revenue growth has deteriorated from 2.9 per cent growth in the March 2026 quarter, to negative growth of an estimated 0.5 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, with further deterioration to negative growth of an estimated 1.0 per cent in the month of July 2026.

Management has said customers are “increasingly looking for value and migrating spending to key promotional events”.  The retail environment is expected to remain uncertain in the short term.

In turn, JB Hi Fi’s “cost of doing business” (as a percentage of revenue) has gently trended up from 12.35 per cent in Fiscal 2023, to 13.10 per cent in Fiscal 2024 to 13.21 per cent in Fiscal 2025 to 13.32 per cent in Fiscal 2026. Further deterioration in like-for-like sales in Fiscal 2027, assuming a tough economic environment, will likely see this “cost of doing business” figure continue its uptrend.

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Chief Executive Officer of Montgomery Investment Management, David Buckland has over 40 years of industry experience.
David is a deeply knowledgeable and highly experienced financial services executive. Prior to joining Montgomery in 2012, David was CEO and Executive Director of Hunter Hall for 11 years, as well as a Director at JP Morgan in Sydney and London for eight years.

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