Growth in mCommerce has helped Argos report its first growth in sales for 5 years, up 2.1 per cent within the fiscal year 2012 (as much as 2 March) to £3.9bn.

Mobile purchases made up 10 per cent of the retailers’ total sales through the year.

That figure has jumped significantly because it announced its half-year leads to October, up from seven per cent. By our maths, which means that during the second one 1/2 the year – from September to March – mobile have to have been towards 13 per cent of sales.

Multichannel sales as a full, meanwhile, increased to 51 per cent of total sales, and visits to Argos’ website and app increased by 24 per cent.

“This was an encouraging year with both businesses growing their market shares. Argos delivered like-for-like sales growth for the primary time in five years and multichannel sales broke throughout the 50 per cent threshold,” said Terry Duddy, chief executive of Home Retail Group. “Our strong financial position enables Argos to deliver on its transformation plan to become a digital retail leader, and for Homebase to speculate inside the rollout of its new proposition.”