Memories of last years dismal shopping figures may be swept away this year as two of the countries biggest retailers announce better than forecast figures. Marks & Spencer and Next have both said that their takings for the third quarter were far better than initially predicted. Sir Stuart Rose has just announced that Marks & Spencer’s profits to September 26th were £298.3 million. He went on to say that the six month figure indicated that the country was probably over the worst of the effects of the global economic downturn. He also said that all eyes would be on performance in the lead up to Christmas which proved to be extremely volatile last year.
Next has said that although retail is still somewhat subdued they have performed much better than expected in the last fourteen weeks. Sales figures are up and consumers have not cut back on spending to the extent that was forecast. The news will be a huge relief to Gordon Brown who has been confidently predicting that the recession will be over by the year’s end.
Primark, one of the country’s leading budget fashion retailers has also announced better than predicted profits. They say that over the past year they have seen a rise of eight percent to £252 million.
A recent report by Kelkoo and the Centre for Retail Research predicts that U.K. shoppers will spend around £328 million more than they did last year. It also predicts that those shopping online will spend a record breaking £8.9 billion.
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