30% sales boost for Burberry

The past seven days we have seen many apparel companies reporting nice growth figures, but Burberry beats all expectations with a 30% sales growth. "No evidence of any slowdown ... What we have seen is consistent strong brand 

momentum and business growth," Finance Director Stacey Cartwright told reporters after the 155-year-old group published it's first half year trading update.

CEO Angela Ahrendts stated: "Our first-half performance, with 30% revenue growth, clearly demonstrates the continuing global momentum of the Burberry brand, underpinned by consistent and balanced double-digit growth in retail and wholesale, all regions and all product categories." Like-for-like sales growth in China was up around 30% in Q2, in line with the first quarter.

Burberry said the first six months operating margin in its retail and wholesale businesses will be flat, compared with a previous forecast for a small decline. But this was partly due to a re phasing of investment and costs and the company kept full-year guidance for a "modest improvement" in the margin. On the 830 million pounds in sales Burberry made an estimated 15% operating margin.

Founded in 1856 Burberry designs and sources apparel and accessories, selling through a diversified network of retail, wholesale, licensing and digital channels worldwide. At 30 September 2011, Burberry globally had 187 retail stores, 210 concessions, 44 outlets and 52 franchise stores.

With it's strong results Burberry has overtaken Marks & Spencers in the FashionUnited Top100 as most valuable British fashion company with a 5.7 billion GBP value, closing in to secure a top 20 position in the global fashion index.

Image: © Burberry/Testino