A PICTURE of consumer confidence will emerge this week with updates from sectors covering restaurants, online gambling and shops.

Carpetright’s annual profits could be as little as £3m tomorrow, down from £17m a year ago and £62m in better times in 2008.

It has rocked investors with a series of profit warnings over the past year and the City will be fearful that another one could be in the pipeline.

However, there are some rays of hope for the retailer, whose UK sales fell five per cent in the year to April amid weak consumer spending and price competition.

Like-for-like sales returned to growth in the final weeks of its financial year, and it has seen its shares rise more than 50 per cent over the past six months amid hopes of improved trading.

Department store chain Debenhams is likely to detail a challenging three months in its latest trading update on Thursday as it contended with the wettest April on record and fought for customers with heavy promotions.

The department store group, which has 164 stores in the UK and Ireland and at its Magasin du Nord chain in Denmark, will reveal its performance for the three months since March 3, which covers the run-up to the diamond jubile.

Analysts expect the company to report a 1.3 per cent decline in like-for-like sales in the 16 weeks to Saturday, as it comes up against strong figures last year when the royal wedding boosted sales of partywear.

The group has contracted five new stores on top of the nine it announced last year and is in discussions to open a further 25 more. It believes it can have an estate of 240 outlets in the UK and Ireland.

Greene King should toast a nine per cent rise in profits on Thursday after it reaped the benefit of Britons’ appetite for eating out on special occasions.

The owner of Hungry Horse, Old English Inns and Loch Fyne Restaurants took £2m on Christmas Day during a record festive period.

City analysts expect its pretax profits to rise nine per cent to £152m in the year to April.

Online gaming firm Betfair is set to report record profits on Friday as smartphone apps produce a surge in popularity of on-the-move gambling.

The City expects underlying earnings to rise 15 per cent to £92m in the year to the end of April, breaking the record it set the previous year. Core revenues are to rise six per cent to £350m