Next delivers robust results

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Both revenue and profits increased for the group for the half year ended July 2010

Group sales for the first half were up 5%.  The company said that costs and margins have been managed carefully and as a result profits in the first half grew by more than sales, up 15% on last year.  Earnings per share have been enhanced through cash generation and share buybacks, resulting in EPS growth of 24%. 

Group revenues increased 5% to £1,587million with profit before tax increasing 15% to £213m.
    
Next says that it is more confident than they have been for some time with the fashion content of their Womenswear ranges, and believe that most of the key trends are well represented. 
Retail VAT exclusive sales in the first half were up 2.2% on last year.  Last year was a 53 week year and as a result the first half started one week later than last year.  This timing difference added 0.9% to their underlying sales growth.
 
Like for like sales for the first half were -1.5% (against the directly comparable period last year). 
 
The company's emphasis on their space expansion programme has moved away from opening mainline stores (with all products) in new locations.  Instead  they have focused on extending or moving within existing trading locations and opening new Home stand alone stores.  They expect this trend to continue for at least two years.  In the first half of the year they added 18 Sportswear departments and 38 "Shoe Rooms".
Directory continues to perform extremely well, with sales up by 9.5%. Orders placed through the internet account for over 70% of Directory sales. Directory profit was up 21.5% on last year.
 
Growth has been mainly driven by an increase in active customers, up by 11.2% and standing at 2,650,000 as at July 2010.  The vast majority of new customers were recruited online. 
 
International revenues did not fare so well, with like for like sales declining in International stores, although less than last year.  However, they are still down -5.8% (-7% last year) at Next franchise partners and -5.5% (-14% last year) in wholly owned stores in Central Europe and Scandinavia.  The impact of the credit crunch was deeper in some overseas stores and they have taken longer to recover.

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