Strong consumer spending has helped retail giant Next outperform in the first quarter of the year.
The company told the market today that full price sales across its business rose 5.7 per cent over the 13 weeks to 27 April. Management had previously guided for growth of 5 per cent.
It is the seventh time in a row that Next has upgraded guidance in its market updates.
Off the back of these robust growth numbers, the company maintained its outlook for the rest of the year. Next said it expected to report total group sales growth of 6 per cent to £6.2bn including “subsidiary companies and markdown sales,” with profit before tax expected to jump 4.6 per cent to £960m.
The company added that it has projected post-tax earnings per share growth of 4.8 per cent for the year.
The company’s upbeat trading update followed comments from Lord Simon Wolfson, who said at the end of March that the outlook for the UK consumer was at one of the best levels in recent memory.
“It has been a long time since we started a year in a more positive frame of mind,” Wolfson said after the company published its full-year numbers.
“If you look at where we are today, compared to any of the last seven years, the headwinds are just not nearly as strong,” he added.
However, the CEO cautioned that there were still likely to be headwinds ahead as the group worked through cost-of-living headwinds and inflation.
“The consumer environment looks more benign than it has for a number of years, albeit there are some significant uncertainties,” Wolfson said.
Next is scheduled to publish its next trading update, for 26 weeks to 27 July, on 1 August.