Next exceeds Q3 growth expectations, driving upward revision of forecasts

Next has upgraded its profit forecast for the full year, announcing a 30 million pounds increase in its guidance for profit before tax, which now stands at 1.14 billion pounds. This uplift follows a much stronger-than-expected performance in the third quarter ended October 25, 2025, where full price sales grew by over 10.5 percent, exceeding the company's guidance of 4.5 percent.

The outperformance was driven by both domestic and international markets; overseas sales surged by 38.8 percent , significantly ahead of guidance, as the company increased its spending on digital marketing due to strong returns and improved stock availability through a consolidation of warehousing operations with Zalando. UK sales also outperformed expectations, growing by 5.4 percent , which the company partially attributes to improved stock levels compared to the prior year.

Following the Q3 results, Next has upgraded its sales guidance for the crucial fourth quarter from 4.5 percent to 7 percent , adding a further 36 million pounds in full price sales to its forecast. The revised guidance for the full fiscal year 2025/26 now anticipates total full price sales growth of 9.7 percent to 5.6 billion pounds, up from the previous forecast of 7.5 percent.

The company anticipates generating approximately 425 million pounds in surplus cash this year. Having already returned 131 million pounds to shareholders through share buybacks, the company currently does not expect to make further buybacks because its share price is higher than its buyback limit. Consequently, Next intends to return the remaining forecast surplus cash of 369 million pounds via a special dividend at the end of January 2026, estimated to be around 3.10 pounds per share.