Decathlon UK strategic turnaround slashes 2025 financial losses by half
Decathlon UK, the French sports retail giant, has reported a huge improvement in its 2025 financial results. The company has now cut its losses by almost half. Total turnover of Decathlon in the UK market in 2025 rose by almost 10% to £285.5 million. Its gross profit rose from £99.7 million to £106.5 million.
The company’s losses fell to £4.2 million from £16.7 million the previous year. In addition, both pre-tax and net losses almost halved, from £23.7 million to £12.8 million.
Decathlon said its sales have increased significantly, thanks to a new generation of store concepts, a redesigned e-commerce platform and the introduction of a ‘Core Price Drop’ strategy to offer customers more competitive prices.
Online sales have increased by 28.3%, thanks to its new e-commerce platform. The company closed five of its physical stores after they failed to perform as expected. Despite the decline in store numbers, sales in existing stores grew by 3.3% and like-for-like store sales grew by 5.9%.
However, despite the positive results, Decathlon said the UK retail market remains challenging. According to the company, these factors have led to a third consecutive year of decline in overall footfall in the UK retail market. Shoppers are visiting stores less often than before but are making purchases based on their needs. The company described December as a particularly ‘drab December’.
To attract customers, Decathlon has reduced the prices of its core products (which creates a deflation of around 6%). This price drop strategy has helped attract a large number of new customers. They have invested a further £6.6 million to transform their stores into modern sports hubs.
Their omnichannel turnover has increased by 12% in the first five months of 2026. Decathlon’s latest financial results indicate that the digital and business transformation strategies undertaken over the past few years are starting to bear fruit. 2025 was a successful turnaround year for the company, which has been trading in the UK since 1999. After a difficult period of business transformation, the company is now fully moving towards an expansion phase.
