M&S posts best clothing sales performance for six years

The long-awaited turnaround in fortunes for Marks & Spencer's fashion business could be upon us as the retailer posted its first quarterly growth in Clothing & Home sales in six years after a strong Christmas.

Like-for-like Clothing & Home sales were up 2.3% in the 13 weeks to 31 December (compared to a 6% slump last year) while total Clothing & Home sales were up 3.1%.

CEO Steve Rowe said that measures taken by the retailer, including "better ranges, better availability and better prices", had been strongly welcomed by customers. "We also continued to substantially reduce discounting, including over Black Friday," Rowe said.

Changes to M&S's reporting period meant that the quarter reported included five additional sales days compared to last year which it said benefited the total Clothing & Home sales figure by around 1.5%. Nonetheless it represents a positive figure and outperformed expectations; analysts had been forecasting a 0.2% like-for-like rise. Like-for-like sales in food were up 0.6% with total sales up 5.6%.

The results compare favourably to those posted by high street giant Next, which last week surprised the market by announcing a 0.4% drop in full-price sales in the 54 days to 24 December when a slight increase had been expected.

Rowe, who was appointed at the start of 2016, announced in November some tough measures to turn the business around including the closure of a number of full-range stores, an international retrenchment and a rationalising of its fashion offer with some in-house brands being culled.

It went into Christmas, however, looking more confident with its "Mrs Claus" ad campaign that received a warm response from customers and industry watchers.