Next cheers retail sector with bumper profits and talk of falling prices

Shares hit new high as chain says consumer backdrop is improving and ‘feels like it is now entering a new era’

Next said the prices it charges customers are falling this year, as the fashion and homeware retailer reported bumper profits and said the UK consumer backdrop was improving.

Simon Wolfson, the group’s chief executive, said that after a positive year of sales and profit growth in the year to January, it was “a long time since we started a year in a more positive frame of mind”.