Warm weather and pay rises have led to an ‘over-performance’ in sales at the homeware and clothing retailer.
Full price sales for the first seven weeks of Q2 were up 9.3% vs last year, compared to Next’s previous guidance of -5%, meaning that in the period, the retailer has beaten its full price sales estimates by £93 million.
As a result, Next has upgraded its full price sales guidance for the full year by £137 million and its full year profit guidance by £40 million to £835 million.
The statement said: “If recent pay rises and the sudden change in weather have indeed contributed to the current over-performance, then it is reasonable to expect that the effect will dinminish over time because ongoing inflation will slowly erode the positive effect of annual pay increases. This is why we are not anticipating the current performance to continue at the same level going forward, albeit we have moderately improved our guidance for the rest of the year.”
