BURBERRY has seen a 14 per cent rise in underlying sales, but has warned that trading conditions are getting tougher.
The luxury goods group said it was well-placed for the key festive period after seeing sales growth in the six months to the end of September.
It is also benefiting from the recent cooling in the pound's strength, having posed a serious headwind to the company earlier this year.
Chief executive Christopher Bailey, who is also Burberry's chief creative officer, said it had been a strong first half of the financial year. He added: "Looking ahead, while mindful of the more difficult external environment, we have never been better prepared internally for the all-important festive periods."
Retail sales in the first half increased by 15 per cent on an underlying basis and by eight per cent at reported exchange rates. Like-for-likes sales growth was 10 per cent. Product highlights included rainwear, driven by the relaunch of its heritage trench coat, as well as its leather bags and mens tailoring.
Burberry's retail arm achieved double-digit like-for-like sales growth in Asia Pacific, but in the second quarter the region saw some softening in growth from Chinese consumers both at home and when travelling.
It added that a more cautious approach from customers selling to European consumers and in the Asian travel retail markets meant that wholesale revenues at constant exchange rates were expected to be down by a mid single-digit percentage in the current half-year to March 31.
Across the group, revenues were £1.1 billion in the half year period, with £748 million coming from its retail channel. It has 216 retail stores, 224 concessions, 55 outlets and 66 franchise stores.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article