Burberry seeks to double online sales and raises overall target to £5bn

Burberry’s chief executive aims to raise annual revenue at the UK luxury goods group to £5bn by increasing sales of leather items, shoes and other accessories and doubling ecommerce revenue.

Jonathan Akeroyd, who this year took over from Marco Gobbetti, set no timeframe for most of his ambitions, but said that “in the medium term” revenue should hit £4bn a year, with sales of leather goods, shoes, women’s ready-to-wear and outerwear increasing 50 per cent.

Accessories should account for more than half of group sales “in the long term”, Akeroyd added, with overall revenue reaching £5bn. Burberry will refocus on its quintessential Britishness. Akeroyd recruited Daniel Lee, a British designer, to replace the previous chief creative Riccardo Tisci.

The changes came alongside results for the six months to October 1 that showed sales up 5 per cent at constant exchange rates to £1.35bn and adjusted operating profit of £238mn, up 6 per cent.

Burberry maintained its forecast for this fiscal year “while [remaining] mindful of the challenging macro environment and its potential impact on trading”.