Burberry bucks gloom with strong US sales

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Underlying retail sales rose by 14 per cent, to £97 million,with like-for-like sales growth a respectable 4.5 per cent.Accessories, including leather coats, shoes and belts, continued tobe the star performer, contributing to most of the retail growth.
The fashion group also benefited from earlier receipts for Autumn /Winter stock, underlining the increasing trend to buy early andpre-order amongst fashion devotees.
Despite the credit crunch and falling property prices, Americaremained the best performing region. Major cities including NewYork, San Francisco and Chicago showed particularly strong sales.The US oil capital, Texas, enjoying record prices of about $146 abarrel since spring, was also showing strong sales, according to MsAhrendts.
Sales in London, which only account for 7 per cent of total sales,were also boosted by a higher number of tourists visiting thecapital. “We’ve seen a lot of Russian and Middle Easttravellers in our stores,” Stacey Cartwright, financedirector, said.
Burberry has increased its average selling space by 12 per cent inthe first quarter of the year, with a 12 to 13 per cent increaseexpected for the year as a whole. New stores have opened in Cannesand Budapest, as well as 14 concessions in Italy, Korea and Spain.
Burberry's wholesale business is also performing strongly withrevenue expected to increase by 10 per cent year-on-year on anunderlying basis, with growth in North America expected to increaseby more than 20 per cent.
Wholesale sales to emerging markets doubled in the first quarter,largely reflecting earlier wholesale shipments particularly toChina. Comparable stores growth in Burberry's franchise stores wasvery strong in the Middle East and Russia and a new store opened inBaku, Azerbaijan.