Burberry reports 3% decline in first quarter like-for-like sales
Burberry has reported that its first quarter underlying retail revenue was flat at £423 million compared with a year earlier. Within this, like-for-like sales declined by 3% in the three months to 30 June.
All three of Burberry’s regions experienced a low single-digit percentage like-for-like sales decline.
Within the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong showed some improvement compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year, but continued to see a double-digit percentage decline in comparable sales. Mainland China comparable sales were broadly unchanged year-on-year as trade was impacted by the evolution of the store portfolio in Beijing, Burberry’s largest market in the country. Excluding Hong Kong and Macau, comparable sales in the first quarter in the region were positive.
In the EMEIA region, trading in the UK improved in the final weeks of the quarter, to deliver mid single-digit percentage comparable growth. Continental Europe remained depressed with double-digit declines in sales to travelling luxury customers, in particular in France and Italy, offset in part by growth from domestic consumers in all major markets.
Burberry said sales in its Americas region continued to experience uneven demand from domestic customers, while spend by the travelling luxury customer remained down by a double-digit percentage.
Meanwhile, online sales continued to outperform and grew strongly in all regions. Mobile delivered the majority of the growth, with nearly 60% of traffic now coming via a mobile device.
Christopher Bailey, Burberry chief creative and chief executive officer, said: “In what remained a challenging external environment, underlying retail sales were flat in the first quarter. In this context, we continue to focus on managing our business with agility whilst implementing the ambitious evolution of our strategies and ways of working we outlined in May, to position Burberry for long-term growth. These plans are now well underway and on track to deliver our financial goals.”
