(Alliance News) - Next PLC on Thursday boosted its full-year profit guidance for a second time this year following a strong first quarter, but the high street retailer was cautious over its post-pandemic prospects.
Next said full price sales were down 1.5% in the 13 weeks to May 1 on two years ago, before the Covid-19 pandemic, which the company said was a more "meaningful" comparison.
The FTSE 100 clothing and homewares retailer said it had assumed full-price sales during period would be down 10%, but beat this forecast by GBP75 million. As such, Next raised its central guidance for full-year pretax profit by GBP20 million to GBP720 million.
In April, the Leicester, England-based firm had raised its central profit guidance by GBP30 million to GBP700 million and "optimistically" ruled out further store closures as the UK's vaccine rollout continued.
Next explained the latest profit upgrade accounts for the GBP75 million sales beat in the first quarter. It has not raised sales growth guidance for the rest of the year, which remains at 3% higher against two years ago.
Next said first-quarter online full-price sales were up 65% from the same time in 2019, while Retail sales in the UK & Ireland were down 76%. That left total product sales down 0.6%, while finance interest income was down 12%.
Looking ahead, Next remained dour and said it expects the recent post-lockdown sales surge to be short lived - based on the experience of last year - with sales to settle back toward guidance levels within the next few weeks.
Next shares were up 2.8% at 8,353.20 pence in London early Thursday, the best performer in the FTSE 100 index.
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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Next (NXT)
