Ted Baker's first quarter: What the analysts say

A good start to the year across all major territories. The solid performance is reflected across all of Ted’s major territories with new store openings in the US and further concessions in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Japan. In the UK, Ted’s strength in menswear particularly benefits from increasing discretionary spend as the consumer environment improves. Ted’s product and territorial licences as well as its ecommerce business, up 48.1%.

We believe consistency should be rewarded. The recent share price weakness has inevitably reignited opportunistic interest in the group’s longer-term potential. A continuation of Ted’s current rate of outperformance would inevitably support further upgrades, given the softening comparable structure for the remainder of the year, but at this stage, we conservatively upgrade our forecasts for the year marginally to profit before tax of £47.5m from £47m. – Charmaine Yap, Jefferies

The trading update was better than our expectations and indicates that the spring/summer ranges have been well received both in the UK and overseas. Ted Baker should see further strong momentum in womenswear, which now accounts for 56% of sales. It is also, in our view, very much in the early stages of an international roll-out strategy. In the period, it opened a further flagship store in the US and concessions in the US, Spain, France and Holland. In addition, it has significant opportunity to grow online sales, which grew by 48% in the period – Freddie George, Cantor Retail

This time last year the implied like-for-like performance was an exceptional 17%, so it was always likely that the run rate of sales growth would slow. However it has barely flickered since the year-end, with the first 19 weeks’ implied like-for-like recorded at 6.3%. This is despite some unusual developments in the sector. Asos may not be a direct competitor of Ted Baker but its pricing activity has disrupted much of the fashion market. There’s nothing in today’s interim management statement to suggest that there was any impact on Ted Baker. The timing of Easter was also fairly unhelpful - it was much later this year - but any bumps there soon levelled out.– Jonathan Pritchard, Oriel Securities

Ted has delivered strong growth against tough comparatives, with continued momentum in established and new markets. We look for first-half profit before tax up 29%. Ted’s group sales were up 17.9% in the 19 weeks to June 7. As is usual, no regional data is given at this stage, but we understand that all key markets have performed well. Asia is starting to benefit as the shopping centres where Ted operates in China become more established. Online sales growth has been very strong, up 48.1%, benefiting from the new platform as well as localised content for overseas sites and the introduction of free standard delivery in the latter part of full-year 2014 – Sanjay Vidyarthi, Liberum