LONDON (Reuters) – Associated British Foods on Monday raised its profit forecast for the 2022/23 financial year and announced a 13% rise in sales of its clothing brand Primark for its third quarter thanks to demand generated by its new ranges of summer.
The group, which also owns major businesses in the sugar, grocery, agriculture and food ingredients sectors, now expects adjusted operating profit, its main profit measure, i.e. “moderately higher” than the 1.435 billion pounds (1.67 billion euros) made in 2021/22.
He previously forecast a result in line with the previous year.
The behavior of European consumers contradicted the anticipated slowdown. The observation is the same on the side of Primark’s competitors, including Inditex, owner of Zara, and H&M. Both have recently seen an increase in sales with the onset of heat despite the effects of inflation.
Another AB Foods competitor, Britain’s Next, raised its sales and profit forecast for the year, saying its business was beating expectations thanks to the weather and rising consumer wages.
AB Foods attributes the 13% rise in Primark’s sales to 1.998 billion pounds between the start of March and the end of May to consumers buying more seasonal clothing and health products, as well as the increase in the average selling price.
In April, AB Foods expected second-half like-for-like sales growth to decelerate from 10% in the first half, cautiously amid persistent inflation.
On the London Stock Exchange, AB Foods title yielded 0.41% at 07:43 GMT.
(Reporting by James Davey; French version Victor Goury-Laffont, editing by Kate Entringer)
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