High street retailer Next said full-price sales had surpassed its expectations in the first half, growing by 4.3 per cent.

It upped its profit expectations for the year after it shifted more full-price stock than expected.

Shares in the company jumped 7.5% in early trading on Wednesday after it said group profit before tax was now forecast to come in at £725 million, up from £715 million.

If achieved, the figure will mark profit growth of 0.3% for the brand, versus a previously expected decline of 1.1%.

he upgrade comes on the back of an update for the 26 weeks to July 27, which showed full price sales were up 4.3% on last year, outstripping expectations.

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The group estimated that full-price sales for the whole year will grow 3.6%, rather than 1.7% as previously guided.

Next said it went into its end-of-season sale in July with 1% less surplus stock than last year.

Although sales in shops were down 3.9% in the first half, the rate of decline was slower than last year and online growth continued to be in the double-digits at 11.9%.

The market responded positively to the news, with analysts at Shore Capital commenting: "Next remains a well-managed company with tight stock and cost controls.

"These are good results despite relatively tough comparatives and there are few retailers with upwards momentum in guidance, despite the uncertain outlook in terms of consumer sentiment."

Total sales, including markdowns, were up 3.8% in the 26 weeks to July 27.

The group upped its full price sales growth guidance for the year to 3.6%, up from 1.7%.

Earnings per share are now expected to be 5.2% higher than last year, up on a previous estimate of 3.4% growth.

Just Eat has reported a 98% slump in profit before tax to just £800,000 for the six months to June 30.

The takeaway operator's revenue jumped 30% to £464.5 million.

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Underlying earnings excluding Mexican operations were down 16% to £72.4 million.

Just Eat said orders were up 21% in the period to 123.8 million, with 2 million net new customers joining in the first half.

In the UK, order numbers grew 9.3%.

The group said its profits were down due to investment in rolling out its own delivery services and in Brazilian market leader iFood.

Full-year revenue is expected to be between £1 billion and £1.1 billion, while earnings are on track to be £185 million to £205 million, excluding Mexico and Brazil.

Apple service products such as streaming and cloud continued to make gains while iPhone sales dropped, according to the company's latest results.

The tech giant posted quarterly revenue of 53.8 billion dollars (£44.3 billion) in the three months to June 29, an increase of 1% from the same period in 2018.

Net profit fell from 11.5 billion dollars (£9.5 billion) last year, to 10 billion dollars (£8.3 billion).

While the iPhone remains the biggest category, the smartphone now represents half of the firm's sales at 26 billion dollars (£21.4 billion), down from 29.5 billion dollars (£24.2 billion) the previous year.

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Meanwhile, services - which includes the likes of Apple Music, iCloud and Apple Pay - along with the Mac, iPad, wearables and home and accessories all experienced growth.

The chief executive called the results "promising", highlighting the continued success of the services part of Apple, which took sales of 11.5 billion dollars (£9.4 billion).

The sector looks set to take a bigger chunk of Apple's growth in the future, with a new movie and TV streaming platform Apple TV+, the Apple Card, as well as a gaming subscription product Apple Arcade, all set to launch soon.

"This was our biggest June quarter ever - driven by all-time record revenue from services, accelerating growth from wearables, strong performance from iPad and Mac and significant improvement in iPhone trends," Mr Cook said.

"These results are promising across all our geographic segments, and we're confident about what's ahead. The balance of calendar 2019 will be an exciting period, with major launches on all of our platforms, new services and several new products."