Following today’s release of Next’s figures for the six months ending 26 July 2025; Emily Salter, Lead Retail Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view: “Next reported a strong H1 FY2025/26 as a combination of different factors aligned to boost its sales: namely good weather and M&S’ struggles at the hands of a cyberattack in the UK, and investments in marketing and infrastructure internationally. In addition, the retailer’s profit before tax rose by an impressive 13.8%. Despite this positive performance, Next’s full year guidance for sales and profit before tax remains unchanged, as the factors that boosted growth in H1 will not continue and it remains cautious about the outlook of the UK economy – with this contributing to its share price falling by over 5% in early morning trading.
“In the UK, Next saw the strongest growth online (+11.1%) as M&S shoppers switched to it during the period of disruption from the cyberattack. Next was the top retailer consumers switched to for clothing & footwear when they were unable to purchase from M&S online, with 12.7% switching to Next, according to GlobalData’s September survey of 2,000 UK respondents. Wholly owned brands and licenses (WOBL) and third-party brands drove growth online, with both divisions seeing full price sales rise by 13%. This shows the benefit of having a wide range of styles and products to attract a range of shoppers, and the presence of WOBL pushes the prices of items sold by Next online up, boosting its margins, as these brands (such as MADE, Never Fully Dressed and Seraphine) are generally more premium. Many consumers are willing to trade up slightly, with the average selling price of Next branded goods also rising by 4%, when prices on like-for-like products only increased by 1%. As consumers are starting to focus on buying fewer, better quality products, the retailer is wise to invest in products at the top end of its price architecture.
“Internationally, sales rose by 28%, with sales through third-party aggregators such as Zalando, Amazon, and Nordstrom up an impressive 33%. This growth increases Next’s reach and enables it to capture different types of shoppers and shopping missions, with its product range on Amazon focusing on basics and needs-driven missions. Marketing spend has been key to international growth, with Next increasing its presence on TikTok to appeal to younger shoppers and utilising local platforms such as Baidu in China to resonate with local shoppers. Next has also made improvements to its website functionality and the shopping experience in international markets, with all the markets it currently operates in now having local currency payment and over half of countries having a local returns solution. Such improvements will make shopping at Next more appealing and convenient, with this element of convenience being a key contributor to its online success in the UK.”
