Next raises guidance as sales recover
Fashion and homewares retailer Next has reported that its sales performance remained “volatile” in its third quarter although stronger sales in late September and early October made up for an “unusually quiet” start to August.
The retailer said that the difference in the performance of its retail stores and its Directory had narrowed in the 13 weeks to 27 October. While retail sales rose 1.1%, Directory sales increased by 5.6% and Next brand sales by 2.7%.
In a statement the company said: “Overall sales performance remains volatile, making it hard to draw conclusions from any one short period of time. We expect total sales in the final quarter to increase broadly in line with sales for the year-to-date. Accordingly we are narrowing our full year sales guidance to a range of +3.0% to +4.5%.”
The narrower sales guidance range and greater certainty on costs for the remainder of the year has enabled Next to give a more precise profit range. The retailer now expects group profit before tax to be in the range of £590 million to £620 million, compared with the previous guidance of £575 million to £620 million. This represents growth of 3.5% to 8.7% for the full year.
Never Miss a Retail Update!Sales growth for the year-to-date for Retail, Directory and Brand was 0.5%, 10.4% and 3.8% respectively.
