Next
Is this more bad news from the high street? It’s certainly not all gloom and doom for fashion retailer Next in its quarterly trading update, however. Store sales are down 4.8%, but online trading is brisk, up 18.1%. That nets out as 6% growth for the brand and it’s the early bout of summer weather that is being seen as responsible here. The future is increasingly pivoting towards online sales and the company is increasing its full year profit guidance as a result of this performance.
Superdry
Sticking with the sector, there’s a pre-close update from Superdry out today as well. The picture has huge parallels to Next – store sales down 6% in the last quarter whilst global brand revenue is up a phenomenal 23%. The company is lauding the success of its multi-channel sales approach to having driven these figures, although tucked away there is a warning of margins having been eroded by around 2%.
BT Group
Full year results from BT Group have been published this morning and although investors may be breathing a sigh of relief over news that the dividend won’t be cut (it won’t be rising either, mind), employees won’t be quite as happy. The company is to shed 13,000 jobs in a bid to save £800million. Although revenues are down, earnings per share have come in fractionally higher than average forecasts, too.
