Burberry off to a good start in new financial year

Rise twice
as big as predicted

Between
early April and the end of June Burberry had sales of 339 million pound (just
under 400 million euro), 21 percent more than in the same period of 2012, when
sales were at 280 million pound. On a comparable basis there still was a rise
of 13 percent: a lot more than the 8 percent of the last quarter from the
previous financial year and more than double than was predicted by financial
analysts.

The results
are a lot better than expected: early May Burberry had even said profits for the
first six months would be lower than in the previous year. Burberry is however
very successful in China, where sales also had a double-digit growth.

Cautious about rest of financial year

Burberry is
remaining cautious about the rest of the financial year. For the retail
department the company is foreseeing a growth of five percent, but for
wholesale the prospects for the first six months are bleaker. For the period
until the end of September the company is predicting a drop of ten percent. Last
year sales were at 253 million pound for the first six months.

The company
wants to use the high sales to steadily increase the operational margins. Last
year they were at 17.1 percent.