THE company which owns kitchen manufacturer Magnet has seen its bottom-line earnings rise again despite a dip in sales.

Darlington-based Nobia Holdings UK said an 8% drop in sales from £467m to £430.5m last year had come as the “stagnant kitchen market” failed to pick up. The decline in the home improvement sector had been similarly blamed the previous year when revenues fell from £471.7m.

But after cutting costs of sales again by £11m to £266.6m the Swedish-owned firm saw a slight lift in its bottom-line profits from £8.7m in 2010 to £9.4m last year.

And the business stressed that it had “considerable balance-sheet strength” of £90.9m, down £5m on the previous year, and was able to return a dividend of £5m to its Stockholm-based parent company. This was £4m less than in 2010.

But it looked ahead with optimism and the report said that “the directors remain confident that the group is in a strong position in the market and anticipate that profits will continue going forward.”

Nobia, which employs 2,700 staff over firms including Eastham, Larkflame and Hyphen Fitted Furniture, said that it was looking at ways of improving service and products.

The UK firm’s annual financial report added: “The group operates in a competitive market place where continuing growth is dependent on maintaining existing customer relationships and developing new business by offering high-quality products and services.

“The key to success is to leverage the group’s position through the premium which its service offering demands. ”