Next Brand'S Two Quarter Full Price Sales Increased By 0.3%.

The second largest in Britain

Retailer

After PLC (NXT.L) resumed growth in the two quarter, it narrowed the year-round sales decline and raised the lower limit of profit targets, which prompted the group's stock price to rise sharply by 4.5% on Wednesday.

In the two quarter ended July 30th, Next

Full price sales increased by 0.3%, although the growth rate was less than 0.6% of the market expectations, but it has dropped by 0.6% over the first quarter.

The new sales area increased by 1.5% over the same period last year. In addition, the total retail sales of Next retail outlets decreased from 4.7% in the first quarter to 3.3%. The growth rate of NextDirectory sales in online and directory businesses also accelerated from 4.2% in the first quarter to 5.7%, mainly due to the increase in overseas sales and inventory supply.

The group pointed out that although the inventory level increased significantly compared with the same period last year, the effect of clearance was obvious, and the total sales of Next brand increased by 1.8% in the two quarter.

NextPLC chief executive SimonWolfson said in the earnings report: "we expect the consumer environment to continue to be difficult, especially in the current three quarter, because the same period last year was the best quarter of last year".

However, the group has narrowed its annual sales growth from -3.5% to 3.5% to -2.5% to 2.5%, and the lower limit of profit target has also been raised from 748 million to 775 million, but the ceiling has been reduced from 852 million to 845 million pounds.

Berenberg analyst MichelleWilson believes that the group's adjustment to the outlook shows that the management is confident that the business environment has improved and believes that the negative impact of Britain's departure on the second half is limited.

NextPLC said in its earnings report that it is not yet appropriate to predict the impact of Europe on consumption demand in the UK. Meanwhile, it revealed that a few days after the June referendum, there has been no obvious change in consumer behavior.

The group points out that if deo affects the efficiency of order fulfillment in the UK, the group will expand to a warehouse in the European continent, which will contribute about 200 million pounds to the group.

In addition, due to the depreciation of the pound, the purchasing cost of the next fiscal year will not exceed 5%. On the other hand, the Sterling devaluation group has hedged before January 2017, so the business performance will not be affected by this impact.

At the same time, NextPLC said it might raise the price of the pound, and many companies including LVMHSE said that considering price adjustment in the UK market also hedged exchange rate fluctuations.

At the time of the deadline, the NextPLC (NXT.L) early segment narrowed to 3.31% and reported 5300 pence, which has fallen by 27.2% since 2016.