Tough trading continued for Next Plc (LON:NXT) as the fashion retailer increased second quarter sales but narrowed its full-year profit guidance.
The group also said business would stay difficult for the rest of the year, starting with a particularly challenging third quarter.
Next, which was hit by bad weather earlier in the year, said full-price sales in the second quarter rose 0.3% against last year and were up on the first quarter.
But the chain said trading was still extremely volatile due to underlying consumer demand weakness and on a week-by-week basis was highly dependent on the weather.
It said it expected the consumer environment to be tough for the rest of the year, with an especially difficult third quarter as the same period in 2015 was its best of the year, up 6%.
The fourth quarter had much softer comparable numbers when the problems of an exceptionally warm 2015 winter were compounded by stock availability issues in its Directory online arm last year.
"So there is potentially some upside in the last quarter, particularly if we have a colder winter," Next said in a trading statement.
The group narrowed sales guidance by 1% both at the upper and lower end of the range, but maintained the central point.
It said the wider than normal range reflected the continued uncertainty and volatility of consumer demand.
Group pre-tax profit was expected to be between £775mln and £845mln, above the lower point of the previous guidance of £748mln but below the upper point of £852mln.
"We expect full-year growth in earnings per share to be between -2.5% to +6.3%," it said.