Two retail giants revealed better than expected sales yesterday, sending the hopes of a booming High Street Christmas season soaring.
London shoppers seem to be ignoring the recession with Next and Marks & Spencer both claiming last night that profits recently recorded had beaten their estimates.
Millions of pounds more are predicted to be spend in stores by British shoppers during the festive season this year compared to 2008’s “black Christmas”.
The appearance of increased consumer confidence will be greeted with a huge sigh of relief by Prime Minister Gordon Brown who had promised last month that the financial crisis would come to a stop by the end of 2009.
The rekindling of spending could contribute to the creation of thousands of jobs in 2010.
The good retail news follows results from low-cost fashion shop Primark which saw an 8% jump in profits to £252million for the year to September 12. Marks & Spencer experienced an unexpected increase in half-year profits yesterday, with head of the company Sir Stuart Rose revealing profits of £298.3million for the six months to September 26.
Sir Stuart claimed that the third quarter of the financial year had kick-off to a good beginning, adding that he believed to the worst of the recession was behind.
He went on by saying the important period which includes the seven to eight weeks before Christmas is still not here yet and the store had already experienced a very reasonable start to the third quarter, although last year’s period had proven to very volatile.
Clothing retailer Next upgraded its profit predictions for the year after experiencing better than expected results during the 14 weeks to October 31.
A recent survey of 40 top High Street retailers demonstrated that shoppers are predicted to spend more freely Christmas season than in 2008. Spending in the UK this season is expected to reach £44.7billion – or £328million extra over 2008.
London shoppers seem to be ignoring the recession with Next and Marks & Spencer both claiming last night that profits recently recorded had beaten their estimates.
Millions of pounds more are predicted to be spend in stores by British shoppers during the festive season this year compared to 2008’s “black Christmas”.
The appearance of increased consumer confidence will be greeted with a huge sigh of relief by Prime Minister Gordon Brown who had promised last month that the financial crisis would come to a stop by the end of 2009.
The rekindling of spending could contribute to the creation of thousands of jobs in 2010.
The good retail news follows results from low-cost fashion shop Primark which saw an 8% jump in profits to £252million for the year to September 12. Marks & Spencer experienced an unexpected increase in half-year profits yesterday, with head of the company Sir Stuart Rose revealing profits of £298.3million for the six months to September 26.
Sir Stuart claimed that the third quarter of the financial year had kick-off to a good beginning, adding that he believed to the worst of the recession was behind.
He went on by saying the important period which includes the seven to eight weeks before Christmas is still not here yet and the store had already experienced a very reasonable start to the third quarter, although last year’s period had proven to very volatile.
Clothing retailer Next upgraded its profit predictions for the year after experiencing better than expected results during the 14 weeks to October 31.
A recent survey of 40 top High Street retailers demonstrated that shoppers are predicted to spend more freely Christmas season than in 2008. Spending in the UK this season is expected to reach £44.7billion – or £328million extra over 2008.
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