UK Apparel Retail Sales

All,

Q4 UK apparel retail appears to have done better than in the first 9 months. 

NEXT Plc’s Retail Sales growth of -3.9% in Q4 compares to an average of -4.6% for the year and -2% of YoY store count (although m2 retail space is up - even net of growing concessions). We also note that much of Next’s growth comes from its Label division, not from selling its own production. Also, the number of customers buying on credit continues to increase.

So in LfL terms (which NEXT do not report) this should have been a smaller decline than in previous periods. 

All in all the cold November weather allowed for a better than expected quarter, an effect we believe we can extrapolate to Matalan and New Look as well. 

Wolfgang