Premium British lifestyle brand, Joules, has announced a strong trading performance of its retail business over the Christmas period. The fashion retailer expects to maintain its profit outlook following the festivities.
Retail sales increased by 11.7% compared to the prior year. According to Joules, this performance “reflected growth across all of the brand’s product categories.”
Online and E-commerce represent almost half of total retail sales over Christmas – the seven-week period to 6 January 2019. This strong online performance was enhanced by a good performance through the company’s digital channels.
Joules is confident that it will achieve full year 2018 PBT in line with expectations.
Chief Executive Officer, Colin Porter, commented on the results:
“I am pleased to update on a continued strong retail performance for Joules through the important festive trading period, which represents an improvement from the retail sales growth in the first half of the year2. This good growth was achieved despite the ongoing backdrop of challenging sector trading conditions.
“The Group’s performance was again underpinned by the strength of the Joules brand, our growing and loyal customer base, and the flexibility of our ‘total retail’ model which continues to enable Joules to adapt to changing customer shopping behaviours.”
Several retailers have begun to announce their financial results over the Christmas period. Not all have posted strong results like Joules. Footwear retailer, Footasylum, warned that its adjusted earnings will lean towards the lower end of analyst expectations. However, on Monday, both Selfridges and budget supermarket Aldi revealed record breaking results over the festive shopping period. Elsewhere in the supermarket sector, Morrisons reported a steady sales growth over Christmas.
The mixed results are an indicator of the current economic uncertainty. What remains apparent is that not all retailers have struggled over the Christmas period. So far, Selfridges, Aldi and Joules are just a few examples of strong performance over Christmas, contrasting the results of Footasylum. For a better understanding of the retail sector over Christmas, however, we must wait and see what additional results are revealed, allowing us to see the bigger picture.
At 09:33 GMT today, shares in Joules Ltd (LON:JOUL) were trading at +5.11%.
