Next delivered what was — for the company — a fairly brief trading update on Thursday given that the firm’s results statements are usually long… very long. But it contained plenty of detail to show how strong trading continues to be for one of the UK’s most dynamic fashion retailers.

While the full interim results aren’t due until 19 September, for now it said that in the second quarter full-price sales were up 3.2% versus last year, “exceeding our expectations by £42 million”. After the exceptional summer last year meant very tough comparisons, it had earlier forecast that Q2 would be down by 0.3% year on year.

And for the first half as a whole, full-price sales were up 4.4% on the year. Its guidance for the period was for those sales to be up only 2.5%.

Meanwhile total group sales, including markdown, subsidiaries and investments, during H1 were up a hefty 8%.

So it’s no surprise that the business has increased its profit guidance for the full year by £20 million to £980 million, up 6.7% versus last year. The profit improvement will come from additional sales (£11 million) and cost savings (£9 million), mainly in logistics.

So let’s dig into the details. First that Q2 performance. The weather last summer was “exceptionally favourable for clothing retailers” so given the wet weather this year there’s no way it was expecting a similar performance for the summer season. 

It was almost right as far as the combined online and physical stores performance in the UK was concerned. That was only slightly ahead of its expectations with a 0.4% increase. But its overseas sales online outperformed with a much-better-than-expected 21.9% rise.

As for that 8% increase in total group sales, that number was boosted by the acquisition of FatFace and an increase in its shareholding in Reiss, both of which happened in Q3 last year.

By division, full-price sales for Online Next UK rose 0.6% in Q2 and 2.2% in H1. Online Label UK was up 7.9% in Q2 and 4.8% in H1. And we’ve already said that Online Overseas was up 21.9% in Q2, while it was also up 22.8% for the first half as a whole. Total online sales rose 8.1% in Q2 and 8.4% in H1, while sales through physical stores dropped 4.7% in the second quarter and 2.6% in the first half.

Although the company has upgraded its profit guidance, it’s maintaining its guidance for full-price sales in the second half to be up 2.5% versus last year. 

The company frequently beats such forecasts and admitted “this might seem cautious when compared with the performance in the first half, which was up 4.4%. However, when compared to two years ago, growth in the first half and the forecast for the second half are almost identical”.

It means total group sales for the full year are expected to be up 6% on last year, which is 2.6% higher than its expected growth in Next Trading full-price sales of 3.4%. The difference is the result of its 97% purchase of FatFace in October 2023 and its increased equity share in Reiss from 51% to 72% in September 2023.