Primark’s Golden Quarter shines, Rita Ora collection is strong

Primark continues to go from strength to strength and a trading update by its parent company on Tuesday said that the Retail division – which is all about Primark – saw sales rising 7.3% in the 16 weeks to 6 January, reaching £3.376 billion. Sales were up 7.9% at constant currency.

Associated British Foods is the chain’s owner and it said Primark trading was “good overall”. And although the period “was marked by a slow start given the unseasonal warm weather”, it saw “strong” Christmas trading. Like-for-like sales grew by 2.1% “driven by higher average selling prices”.   

The product offer “performed well in the period” with both women’s and menswear strong, “particularly in performance wear, leisure and tailored clothing and in our Rita Ora collection”. 

Sales of its specific Christmas ranges “sold-through well” and sales of its cold weather clothing are “much improved” given the recent low temperatures, despite that slow start.

The UK saw total sales up 4.5% and comparable sales up 3.8%. As mentioned, they were hit earlier in the season by those mild temperatures but they grew strongly leading up to Christmas and the company’s market share hit a new record at 7.1% for the 12 weeks to 10 December, up 0.1 percentage points on the year.

In the rest of Europe, where the company has been expanding with new stores, total sales rose an even better 8.1%, although like-for-like sales were up by a lower 1.3%. 

It said the contribution from its store opening programme remains “very strong as our store expansion programme continues with eight stores opened in the period: three in France, three in the US, one in Spain, and one in Poland”.

The company added that the Europe performance was “mixed with some countries trading well and other countries impacted by a combination of strong comparatives in the same period last year and local economic conditions”.

But sales in the US powered ahead and grew by 45% in the period driven by those three new store openings.

The company also said it ended the period with stock levels in “a good position” and it continues to monitor the situation in the Red Sea, “but at this stage we do not expect any significant disruption to our supply chain”.