(Bloomberg) -- Britons snapping up electric clothes-drying racks to ease higher energy costs lifted sales at home-furnishings seller Dunelm Group Plc.

The products proved particularly popular with cost-conscious customers in the December quarter, helping boost revenue by 18%, the Leicester, England-based company said on Thursday. 

While consumers have been curbing discretionary spending as rising food, energy and fuel bills squeeze household budgets, Dunelm said sales last quarter rose 48% from three years earlier, before the pandemic. It left its full-year guidance unchanged.

The shares initially rose before falling as much as 3.5% in London trading. RBC Capital Markets analysts, in a note, cited concern over near-term margin pressure with the “risk of elevated levels of discounting to come.” 

Still, the sales performance illustrates “Dunelm’s strength in essential products and how the value winter offering resonates with income-strapped consumers,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Tatiana Lisitsina and Charles Allen said. 

--With assistance from Joel Leon.

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