31 July 2025

Trading Statement for the Second Quarter

HEADLINES

¹ NEXT full price sales include items sold in Retail and Online plus NEXT Finance interest income, but excludes Sale events, Clearance, Total Platform commission and the sales from subsidiaries.

² NEXT Group profit before tax excludes: (1) the cost of brand amortisation, (2) the profit attributable to shares that we do not own in subsidiary companies.  In the prior year an exceptional, non-cash, loss relating to the closure of our defined benefit pension scheme was also excluded

FULL PRICE SALES PERFORMANCE BY BUSINESS DIVISION

Our full price sales performance versus last year, by business division, is set out below for the second quarter and the first half. 

END-OF-SEASON SALE

We went into the end-of-season Sale with surplus stock up +5% versus last year.  To date, clearance rates are in line with our expectations.

FULL PRICE SALES GUIDANCE FOR THE SECOND HALF AND FULL YEAR

We remain cautious for the second half, with full price sales forecast to increase by +4.5% (as against +10.9% in the first half).  The table below summarises our guidance for the UK and overseas versus last year.  Further commentary is given below the table.  

Sales Guidance for the UK Explained

We are maintaining our H2 guidance for UK sales to be up +1.9% (versus +7.6% in the first half).  There are three reasons that we expect lower growth in the UK during the rest of the year:

Sales Guidance for International Explained

We are upgrading our guidance for International Online sales in the second half from +13.1% to +19.4%.  This is because we believe we can invest more in profitable digital marketing than we had originally planned.  For reference, international sales in Q1 were +30%, and +26% in Q2. 

GUIDANCE FOR SALES, PROFIT AND EARNINGS PER SHARE (EPS)

Our revised guidance for the full year is summarised below, along with our previous guidance which is shown in grey. 

³ Total Group sales are the sum of total sales (full price and markdown) from all of the Group's divisions plus revenue from subsidiaries and investments.  Group sales are not statutory revenue. 

Share buybacks and assumptions on EPS

In Q1, we purchased £81m of shares at an average share price of £104, reducing shares in issue by 0.6%.  In Q2, the share price remained above our buyback limit, so no further shares were purchased. 

As a reminder, share buybacks are subject to us achieving a minimum 8% Equivalent Rate of Return (ERR) on the purchase.  ERR is calculated by dividing anticipated NEXT Group pre-tax profits by the current market capitalisation⁴.  Our latest guidance of pre-tax profits of £1,105m results in a buyback limit of circa £118 per share. 

⁴ Market capitalisation is calculated based on expected average shares in circulation for the year, and excludes shares in the NEXT Employee Share Option Trust.

The guidance for EPS in the table above assumes that we make no further share buybacks this year.   

Special dividends

In the absence of any acquisitions, we intend to return any surplus cash that we are unable to spend on share buybacks by way of a special dividend early next year (2026).

A 53-week year

As a reminder, this year is a 53-week year, and profit from the additional week is excluded from this sales and profit guidance.  We expect week 53 to add a further c.£20m of profit.  At our Year End Results, we will report week 53 as a distinct item, so it does not distort any comparisons.

INTERIM RESULTS

We are scheduled to announce our results for the first half of the year on Thursday 18 September 2025.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements in this Trading Update are forward looking statements. These statements may contain the words "anticipate", "believe", "intend", "aim", "expects", "will", or words of similar meaning. By their nature, forward looking statements involve risks, uncertainties or assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by those statements. As such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward looking statements. Except as required by applicable law or regulation, NEXT plc disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update these statements to reflect events occurring after the date these statements were published.