Christmas boost list profit hope for Next

NEXT has increased its full-year profit outlook once again after a better-than-expected festive performance, but remains cautious over the outlook amid a worsening UK jobs market.

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The high street retail giant, which has about 900 stores, reported a 5.9% rise in UK full-price sales for the nine weeks to December 27, while overseas sales surged by 38.3%.

It now expects pretax profits to rise by 13.7% to £1.15 billion for the year to the end of January on full-price sales up 10.7%.