Retailers continue to take the limelight this week, with supermarket Sainsbury's, fashion chain Next and online player ASOS lining up to report figures.
Fashion chain Next is set to mark a milestone on Thursday when results are expected to show annual profits overtaking Marks & Spencer's for the first time.
A stellar Christmas performance saw Next up its profit forecast for the second time in just over two months, with the group expecting earnings for the year to January 25 to surge by up to 12.6%.
It notched up a better-than-expected 11.9% jump in sales from November 1 to Christmas Eve, with sales up 7.7% in stores and 21% in the Next Directory catalogue and online division.
The group left rivals such as M&S in the shade, helped by its policy of not discounting before Christmas.
Next expects to earn between £684 million and £700m in its full year, up from a previous range of between £650m and £680m.
This puts it on course to make more money than M&S for the first time since it 1982 launch, with M&S predicted to see underlying annual pre-tax profits fall to £628m.
Sainsbury's is expected to break its three-year record of consistent underlying sales growth when it publishes figures tomorrow, as it battles against discount chains and comes up against tough comparatives from a year earlier.
Analysts are forecasting a decline of around 3% in like-for-like sales in a sharp reversal of recent fortunes.
The drop would bring to a close its lengthy run of sales growth, having seen underlying sales rise for 36 quarters in a row, and marks a downbeat end to the year's trading for outgoing boss Justin King. He will step down after 10 years at the annual meeting in July, and will hand over to commercial director Mike Coupe.
Sainsbury's only just held on to the sales record over Christmas, when it eked out growth of 0.2% in what it described as a "very tough sales environment".
It put in the best performance of the "big four" players, but still came under pressure as it admitted it was likely to miss expectations for a full year like-for-like sales increase of 1% to 1.5%, prompting analysts to shave annual profit forecasts.
The fourth quarter update will make for "grim reading", retail analyst Andrew Porteous at Agency Partners said. He is pencilling in a 3% drop, with the chain failing to follow a tough act from the previous year, when it outperformed rivals amid the horsemeat scandal.
Online fashion firm ASOS will reveal how it has fared after an impressive Christmas for the group when UK and international sales surged ahead. The group achieved retail revenues of £335.7m in the four months to December 31, with UK sales beating its performance a year earlier with growth of 37%, while international turnover lifted 38%.
Analysts at Nomura believe tomorrow's update will show sales growth slowing in the shorter second quarter, which covers the two months to February 28.
They are expecting overall growth of 28%, with the UK up 21% and the international division 32% ahead.
This will still put ASOS in line for first-half growth of 35%, according to Nomura.
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