Floor coverings giant Carpetright issued another profit warning last week as tough trading conditions continued.

The retailer said fragile consumer confidence resulted in a “weak floor coverings market”.

Carpetright now expects underlying pre-tax profits for the year to April 30 to come in below last year’s £28.2m but ahead of the £17.2m achieved in 2009.

Oriel analyst Ben Hunt said: “Arguably this consumer downturn is more severe than the one seen in 2008/2009. There is a real risk that forecasts will continue to worsen.”

He added: “Management believes that the recent spell of good weather has also not helped.”

Peel Hunt analyst John Stevenson pointed out that Carpetright continued “to deliver strong levels of cash generation”.

However, he said: “We assume like-for-like sales performance has been marginally weaker than the third quarter.”

In February Carpetright issued its first profit warning of the year, when it revealed that UK and Republic of Ireland like-for-like sales had slipped 7.7% in the 13 weeks to January 29.

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