Burberry’s successful campaign with footballer Marcus Rashford has helped the luxury retailer ride out the pandemic.

Despite a fall in “retail comparable store sales” for the three months to Boxing Day, the store saw “new, younger clientele” thanks to Rashford’s involvement with the brand.

Sales remained week and were down 9% due to the fall in tourism and footfall amid the pandemic. Sales in the Asia Pacific rose by 11% thanks to strong demand in Mainland China and Korea, however, fell in the EMEIA and Americas by -37% and -8% respectively.

Marco Gobbetti, the chief executive officer of Burberry, commented: “Despite the challenging external environment, we made good progress on our strategic priorities in the quarter. We saw a strong increase in full-price sales as our collections and communication resonated well with new, younger clientele as well as existing customers. Our localised plans and digital capabilities helped drive growth in rebounding markets and we implemented our planned reduction in markdown. While the short-term outlook remains uncertain due to COVID-19, we are well placed to accelerate when the pandemic eases.”

On the new campaign with Rashford, Burberry commented: “In November, we launched our Festive campaign, partnering with Marcus Rashford MBE, the English international footballer who has taken a prominent role against child poverty during the pandemic, and global charities championing youth-related causes.

“The consumer response to the campaign was exceptional, with engagement on our Instagram campaign posts more than double our Q2 average, and imagery featuring Marcus becoming our most liked Instagram post of all time. Marcus’ work to support the UK’s youth sits at the heart of our partnership and embodies our commitment to community and going beyond.”

Looking forward, Burberry remains encouraged by “the strong underlying outperformance of full-price sales in Q3”, despite headwinds from store closures.

Shares in Burberry have jumped 5% and are currently trading at 1.828,00 (0956GMT).

UK inflation doubled in December, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Despite a fall in food and drink prices, the cost of transport, recreation and culture rose in the run-up to Christmas. Prices were 0.3% higher than November and 0.6% up on the same period a year ago.

The ONS said:  “Despite the travel restrictions in place in December, prices for air fares followed their usual seasonal pattern, with price increases between November and December 2020.”

“In the UK, inflation has still been fairly benign though core prices have been higher than the more generally used headline number,” said Michael Hewson, the CMC Markets UK chief analyst. “It has also been tougher to track UK inflation in the past 12 months due to the unavailability of some products which are normally used to calculate prices in the inflation basket.

“Nonetheless, price pressures have been subdued with November prices falling back to 0.3 per cent, though core prices are higher at 1.1%,” he added.

The UK inflation has been falling over the past two years and fell to record lows of 0.2% in August, following the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme and VAT cut.

Jon Hudson is the UK Equity Fund Manager at Premier Miton Investors. He commented on the UK inflation in December: “At 0.8%, the inflation rate remains well below target but given the lockdowns it is unsurprising.

“Should the vaccine be successfully rolled out and restrictions reduced, it is likely inflation will pick up in the second half of the year, driven by consumers spending the money they have been unable to over the past year, and higher commodity prices.”

Netflix added 8.5m paid subscribers in the four months to 31 December – significantly higher than analyst expectations of 6.1m.

The streaming service saw strong trading as the world remained under lockdown restrictions. The group has a total of 203m paid subscribers across the world.

Revenue increased from $5.5bn to $6.6bn (£4.8bn), higher then expectations of $6.63bn for this quarter.

Throughout the festive season, Netflix streamed various Christmas films that performed particularly well.

“Our holiday movie slate also resonated with our members; in the first four weeks, 68m and 61m member households chose to watch Holidate (starring Emma Roberts) and The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (starring Kurt Russell), respectively. Our first Portuguese language holiday film from Brazil, Just Another Christmas (starring Leandro Hassum), was also a big hit with 26m member households globally choosing to watch in the first 28 days of release,” said the group in a statement.

Streaming also was helped by the closure of cinemas and delays of major blockbuster films including James Bond and Avatar 2.

Shares in the group surged 11% on the update and have increased over 50% over the past year.

Alistair Thom, chief executive of free-to-air TV provider Freesat, commented on the streaming service update: “We’re approaching nearly a year of on-off lockdown restrictions and, for many of us, the only form of entertainment has been watching TV at home. Central to that has been streaming services like Netflix with people racking up hours of binge viewing, which the latest figures underline.”

“However, as things ‘get back to normal’ and other entertainment options resume, Netflix and its competitors will be hoping to hold onto their newly expanded audiences and that they retain their current viewing patterns.”

HSBC has announced plans to close 82 branches as the group focuses more on online banking.

The banking group has said that despite the closures, there will be minimal redundancies as staff will be redeployed to “suitable nearby locations”. It has not said how many jobs will be affected.

The number of branches in the UK will fall to 511 and the decision reflects “local market trends, customer behaviour and branch usage”.

Jackie Uhi, HSBC UK’s Head of Network, said: “In recent years we have introduced more digital options to make our customers’ lives easier and we know that customers are becoming more comfortable primarily using online and mobile banking to take control of their finances, turning to other channels for very particular interactions.”

The group said that even before the pandemic, the number of customers using bank branches fell by a third over the past five years.

Last year the group revealed a major restructuring plan, where it announced plans to cut 35,000 jobs globally.

The bank said that currently, 90% of all customer contact is over the phone, internet or smartphone.

TSB recently announced closure of 164 branches in the UK.

TSB chief executive Debbie Crosbie said: “Closing any of our branches is never an easy decision, but our customers are banking differently – with a marked shift to digital banking.

“We are reshaping our business to transform the customer experience and set us up for the future.

“This means having the right balance between branches on the high street and our digital platforms, enabling us to offer the very best experience for our personal and business customers across the UK.”