Profits up: Next said full-price sales are set to rise 2.5% as shoppers have more cash in their pockets due to higher salaries.
The boss of Next said the outlook for households is the best it has been since before Covid as it heads towards £1billion profit.
With inflation on the retreat and the economy recovering, Simon Wolfson said ‘it feels like we are now entering a new era’. The comments came as the High Street retailer said it expects profits to hit £960million this year.
Tesco, Marks & Spencer and B&Q owner Kingfisher are the only other public UK retailers to have raked in £1billion in profits in a single year.
Next also said full-price sales are set to rise 2.5 per cent as shoppers have more cash in their pockets due to higher salaries.
In a further boost, Next said there will be a ‘small reduction’ in prices this year. The dose of optimism pushed shares up 6.7 per cent to a record high of 9078p, giving it a value of £11.5billion.
Wolfson hailed the drop in inflation as ‘encouraging’ for consumers while wages rising faster than prices will ‘ease the pressure they have felt on their cost of living for the last 18 months’.
It was an unusually bullish tone from the businessman, who has been praised for his leadership of one of Britain’s top retailers.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: ‘Not all retail businesses are created equal… the excellent way Next as a business has been positioned helps underpin and lend credibility to its optimistic outlook.’
Publishing its full-year results for last year, Next said profits rose 5 per cent to £918million as sales increased by 5.9 per cent to £5.8billion. But Wolfson warned against ‘wild optimism’.
He said: ‘That doesn’t mean we think the consumer environment’s going to be hugely ebullient, we just don’t think that the consumer’s facing the same headwinds they were facing at this time last year.’
