Mulberry's first-half sales jump 18% as new bags and less discounting lift the British label

British luxury leather-goods brand Mulberry said on Monday, 19 October, that group sales rose 18% year on year in the 26 weeks to 26 September, as chief executive Andrea Baldo’s turnaround began to show results, Sharecast and BoF reported.

Where the growth came from

• US: sales up 28%, helped by digital growth, the launch on Bloomingdale’s Marketplace and a wider wholesale presence.
• Europe: up 23%; UK: up 10%; Asia-Pacific: up 5%.
• Franchise and wholesale revenue: up 52%.

New styles including the Raffia, Crochet, Stevie and Darley Camera bags sold particularly well, alongside the Bayswater and Lily icons, the company said. It also credited extra attention from the Mulberry by Christopher Kane runway show at London Fashion Week.

Full price matters

Mulberry said it resisted discounting: excluding markdowns, promotional sales were a 300 basis-point smaller share of sales than a year earlier. “The growth in full-price sales is particularly encouraging,” Baldo said, while warning that the company is “operating in a challenging trading environment”.

Shares rose as much as 7.4% to 246p in morning trading on Monday. Susannah Streeter of Wealth Club said Mulberry “appears to have won back its place in the fashion pack”, adding that its challenge is to make its products “feel worth paying full price for again”.