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* Sees risk of worse sales decline this year
* Erratic British weather clouds picture
* Lowers forecast range for annual profit (Adds CEO comments, analyst comments, share price)
By Sarah Young
LONDON, May 4 (Reuters) - Next, Britain's mostsuccessful clothing retailer over the past decade, warned thatits sales could fall as much as 3.5 percent this year, hit by acool spring and signs of a slowdown in consumer spending.
Next said that it now expected full-price sales for its2016-17 year to be anything between 3.5 percent lower and 3.5percent higher, widening the range from a previous forecast forsales to be down 1 percent to up 4 percent.
The downgrade was Next's third in five months and underlined the difficulties facing rivals including Marks & Spencer. Next had warned in March that this year could be itstoughest since the financial crisis of 2008.
The fickle British weather was partly to blame for therecent negative trends, Next said, noting that last year Marchand April were warmer.
"Without having had any good weather it's very difficult toknow how much of the underperformance is down to weather and howmuch is down to the general consumer," Next Chief ExecutiveSimon Wolfson said in an interview on Wednesday.
A recovery in temperatures in the past few days had driven apick-up in sales.
"We think it's more than likely we're at a low point. Theweather has only just turned but what we've seen so far is thatas the weather's turned it's quite a significant turnaround,"Wolfson said.
British retail sales fell at the sharpest rate in more thanfour years last month, after cold weather turned shoppers awayfrom new spring and summer clothes, the Confederation of BritishIndustry said last week. It also noted that more money was goingon leisure and entertainment.
COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE
Shares in Next rose 4 percent to 5,185 pence at 0930 GMT,which Cantor analyst Freddie George put down to relief.
"These figures are not quite as bad as people feared," hesaid.
The stock had lost 4 percent over the previous month, andsince the beginning of the year, it has plunged 30 percentlagging Britain's bluechip index which was down 1 percent.
Analysts had questioned whether there were company specificissues, such as the maturity of its Directory catalogue andinternet business, and intense competition.
Wolfson denied that there were more fundamental problems.
"The big issue we identified in the fourth quarter last yearwas the stock availability issue which we have corrected," hesaid.
Next said that as a result of its uncertainty over sales itwas also cutting its pretax profit forecast and now expectedprofit in the range of 748 million pounds ($1.09 billion) to 852million pounds, compared to a previous range of 784 millionpounds to 858 million pounds.
Analysts currently expect Next to report annual pretaxprofit of 829 million pounds according to Thomson Reuters data. ($1 = 0.6871 pounds)
(Editing by Keith Weir)
