Dixons Store Group saw sales fall six per cent in the last quarter, despite good progress in sexing up its stores.

DSG international, owner of PC World and Currys, did worse on its home turf - UK computing sales fell 17 per cent, in sterling, in the sixteen weeks ended 22 August 2009. The firm said reformatting of stores and a drying up of business to business sales at PC World helped push down demand.

Ecommerce sales, notably dixons.co.uk and pixmania.com, were up six per cent. The star performance was in the Nordics where sales were up 16 per cent. Overall group sales were down six per cent in like-for-like terms.

The firm has reformatted 108 stores in the UK with a further 60 to 80 and five megastores due to be finished by year end.

John Browett, group chief executive, said: "Given the challenging environment, this is an encouraging start to the year... we are making good progress on our Renewal and Transformation plan..."

The group has successfully ditched its Polish and Hungarian business in the period and raised £320m in a rights issue to pay for the store upgrades.

DSGi's statement is here as a pdf.

DSGi shares rose strongly in early trading, up nearly five per cent in a falling market at the time of writing. ®