Next still powering ahead in UK and Europe, will launch with Asian aggregators in 2026

Next’s latest financial report on Thursday’s showed just how strong the fast-growing UK-based retail business is and also how much it has benefited from M&S’s cyberattack-linked issues this year.

The figures didn’t come as a surprise given that Next had issued an upbeat trading statement for Q2 back in late July. But Thursday’s confirmed figures contained plenty of extra detail.

So let’s look at the numbers first. As full-price sales rose 10.9%, total group sales including markdowns and subsidiaries were up 10.3% at £3.249 billion. Statutory revenue rose 9.9% to £3.145 billion. Group profit before tax rose 13.8% to £515 million, statutory profit before tax jumped 17.8% to £509 million and group profit after tax rose 13.4% to £387 million. 

For the year to January 2026 the company expects full-price sales growth of 7.5%, which means 4.5% growth year on year in the second half, a lower number than the first half sales given that the weather may not be so compliant in the second half and that M&S is now just about back to full strength after it’s cyber attack during the spring. Next’s pre-tax profit for the full year should be £1.105 billion, up 9.3% and unchanged from previous guidance.

Digging into the detail

Year on year full-price sales growth for the UK Retail division (that is, its stores) was 5% with the Next brand itself also up 5%, wholly-owned brands and licenses (WOBL, accounting for only 7% of H1 sales) were flat in-store, but third-party brands were up 24%. 

Online for the UK, Next brand sales rose 7%, WOBL rose 15%, and third-party brands 12% for a combined total of 9%. 

Taking Retail and Online together, total UK full-price sales rose 6%, while WOBL and third-party rose 13% each and the final combined figure was an increase of 8%.

Moving abroad, International Next websites grew 20% for the Next brand, 47% for WOBL and 45% for third-party, giving a total of 26%. And International third-party aggregators rose 21% for the Next brand, and 325% for WOBL for a total of 33%. It meant total International sales for the Next friend rose 20%, for WOBL they were up 96%, for third-party they rose 45% and all of those combined meant a 28% increase.

And combining both the UK and International, Next brand sales rose 9% at full price, WOBL 33%, and third-party 16%, to combine for a total of a rise of 11.6%.

THE WOBL mix includes Cath Kidston, Lipsy, Laura Ashley, Bath & Body Works, Seraphine, FatFace and many more.

Its third-party branded business sells non-Next brands that it doesn’t wholly own or licence – such as Nike, Whistles, Boden and more. They had a good season, accounting for a fifth of group sales, and just over a quarter of its growth. The company buys these brands at wholesale prices, or sells them on a commission basis.

Higher-end brands, and aggregators

This part of the business is also helping it move more upmarket. Last autumn, for instance, it launched its higher-end Seasons webstore. Featured brands include Coach, Dragon Diffusion, Tory Burch, Marc Jacobs, Polo Ralph Lauren, Rixo, Carhartt and Belstaff – with more to follow as the business develops. Seasons is still small “and is likely to take years to scale,” we’re told. But Next said “the same was once true of our wholly-owned brands and licence businesses. Like them, if executed well, Seasons will give us access to new markets and potential growth in the future”.

New markets and potential growth are also a big part of the firm’s international growth and aggregators are key here. New aggregators for the business include About You (Europe), Amazon (France, Italy, Spain, Germany) and Nordstrom (US). Amazon’s sales have been ahead of its expectations but are limited to its basic and essential products. In H2 it plans to begin trading with a new European aggregator. It will also extend its presence on Amazon to The Netherlands and Belgium. And in H1 2026 it plans to launch with at least one major Asian aggregator. 

More than half its growth with existing aggregators came from the addition of wholly-owned brands and licensed products. It said this is “encouraging for our WOBL business, as it implies the effort we put into developing new brands and licences will have benefits beyond Next’s own platform”. 

Going forward, it sees the biggest opportunity with existing aggregators is to improve the breadth and availability of its product offer with them. The outsourcing deal it has with Zalando “is very important. We are in the process of consolidating our European warehousing with Zalando through their ZEOS business division. This means that our own EU websites will be served from the same stock pool as our Zalando business. The overall effect should be to significantly increase our stock availability on Zalando’s websites”.

Unusually enthusiastic 

In an unusually upbeat (unusual for Next, at least) statement, the company said the impressive results came on the back of a “palpable increase in creative energy in product departments. They are delivering newness whilst driving to deliver quality that exceeds our customers’ expectations at every price level”. It also said the energy extends to the development of its growing portfolio of new brands, licences and third-party brands and to the “creative energy and ingenuity” delivered by the teams developing its online platform.

It admitted that the above statements, coming from a business that’s usually quite low-key when it comes to results time may sound a little “gushing”, especially given that the season was marked by unusually favourable weather and the M&S disruption. But it assured observers that its “enthusiasm for its many opportunities is grounded in a cautious realism”.

It’s caution includes the belief that the medium-to-long-term outlook for the UK economy doesn’t look favourable, although it doesn’t believe it’s approaching a cliff edge. Instead it said expects anaemic growth for the national economy. But even with that, it thinks it’s own business is in a good place. Based on these results, it would be hard to contradict that.