UK's M&S hits $4.9 bn Christmas sales in Q3, up 5.6 per cent YoY

The company’s Clothing, Home & Beauty sales increased by 1.0 per cent YoY, with like-for-like (LFL) sales up 1.9 per cent, ahead of the market in challenging conditions. Underlying sales grew 2.6 per cent adjusted for the impact of the exit of the bulky furniture category. Within this, online sales were up 11.7 per cent driven by customer growth and improved availability and represented 34 per cent of sales in the period compared to 31 per cent last year, M&S said in a press release.

The international sales were down 2.8 per cent YoY, largely driven by continued challenging market conditions in India and the phasing of franchise shipments.

“This was another good Christmas for M&S, building on a strong performance in the prior year. We sustained trading momentum with like-for-like sales up 8.9 per cent for Food and 1.9 per cent for Clothing, Home & Beauty. Sales records were broken across the business, with Food recording its biggest day and Clothing, Home & Beauty online its biggest week, but we are not complacent - as a growth business it is our job to break records,” said Stuart Machin, chief executive at M&S.

“In Clothing, Home & Beauty our focus on style, quality and value saw us grow sales and take market share in a declining market, with womenswear and menswear performing well. M&S partywear sales were up on last year but it was our heartland categories of denim and knitwear that outperformed. Online grew strongly and new and renewed stores continued to outperform expectations, but store sales overall were down 1.5 per cent in part due to weather,” added Machin.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (SG)