Darty Q4 like-for-like sales fall 0.5 pct

PARIS, May 21 (Reuters) - Darty Plc, Europe's third-largest electrical goods retailer, said on Thursday that despite improving consumer confidence its markets remained challenging, particularly in multimedia.

Darty posted a 0.5 percent decline in like-for-like fourth-quarter revenue, which showed an improvement from a 2.9 percent decline in the third quarter.

Sales at Darty France, which represents 70 percent of group revenue, fell 0.7 percent in the quarter, also an improvement from a 3 percent decline in the previous three months.

The fourth quarter to end April is traditionally Darty's weakest quarter, making around 20 percent of annual sales.

Like its larger rivals - Metro (Other OTC: MTRAF - news) 's Media-Saturn and Dixons - Darty has been battling weak consumer spending and competition from online retailers.

London-listed Darty, with some 400 stores in Europe, has responded by cutting costs, exiting loss-making operations in Italy, Spain, Turkey and the Czech Republic, and focusing on its core markets of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. (Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by James Regan)