An “excellent consumer response” to Riccardo Tisci’s debut collection helped to boost sales at Burberry Group PLC (LON:BRBY) in the opening few months of the fashion house’s financial year.
Like-for-like sales growth accelerated to 4% in the 13 weeks ended 29 June to £498mln, up from £479mln in the same period a year earlier.
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That was much better than what had been expected by City analysts, who had been looking for growth of closer to 2%.
Shares were up 6.8% to 2,125p in early deals on Tuesday, taking the stock to the top of the FTSE 100.
Burberry said much of the outperformance was due to strong demand for Tisci’s new designs, with sales from his first range jumping by a “double-digit percentage” compared with similar lines a year ago.
Perhaps even more pleasingly was Burberry’s performance in China – a key market for Europe’s luxury fashion brands but one that has showed signs of slowing in recent months.
Burberry put paid to that suggestion though, with sales in the People’s Republic climbing by a mid-teens percentage.
Full-year guidance unchanged
In its home UK market, the weak pound encouraged tourists to part with more of their cash, with sales in the wider Europe, Middle East, India and Asia region up low-single digits.
“This was the first quarter where the proportion of new product in our stores was meaningful and the response from consumers was very promising,” said Burberry.
“New collections delivered strong double-digit percentage growth, with all regions ahead of prior year equivalent collections.”
For the rest of the year, Burberry still expects “broadly stable” revenue and operating margins, with a more pronounced profit weighting towards the second half.