British Retailer Next Boosts Fiscal 2026 Sales, Profit Outlook After International Sales Beat

05:52 AM EST, 01/06/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Next plc (NXT.L) raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2026 amid an unexpected overseas sales surge, while moderating its projections for the following year, according to a Tuesday trading update. The British clothing, footwear and home products retailer now expects pretax profit for the year ending January to climb 13.7% on an annual basis to 1.15 billion pounds sterling, up from prior guidance of a 12.2% increase to 1.14 billion pounds. Total group sales outlook was raised to 6.97 billion pounds from 6.87 billion pounds. while after-tax EPS is seen growing 16.1% to 7.388 pounds, compared with an earlier guidance for a 14.6% rise to 7.294 pounds. The upgrade reflects full-price sales growth of 10.6% in the nine weeks to Dec. 27, 2025, exceeding expectations, alongside better-than-expected clearance rates offsetting a 5% annual increase in end-of-season-sale stock. While UK sales growth slowed modestly, international online sales surged 38.3% as sales via European ecommerce company Zalando (ZAL.F) surpassed expectations following its migration to the ZEOS platform in August 2025. Conversely, Next struck a more cautious tone on fiscal 2027, citing tougher UK comparatives, labour market pressures, and a planned reduction in overseas marketing spend. UK retail sales growth is forecast to slow to 1.6% from 6.6% in the current year, while international growth is expected to ease to 16.5% from 33%. For fiscal 2027, the London-listed company expects group pretax profit to grow 4.5% to 1.2 billion pounds, a post-tax EPS up 4.3% at 7.704 pounds, and total group sales rising 4.2% to 7.26 billion pounds. "We think this is just conservative guidance at this stage and [expect] them to beat this guidance (Bernstein at +5.5% vs. guidance of +4.5%), given the momentum in the business at this stage," analysts at Bernstein noted in a quick take report following the update. Next shares in London were up over 2% as of midday, while Zalando was down over 1% in Frankfurt.