Pottery giant Portmeirion expects full year trading for 2021 to be five per cent higher than originally estimated.
In an update to the London Stock Exchange, the Stoke-based company revealed that it has continued to see strong sales across all of its brands and all key markets since September and added that it has "healthy order books" for the remainder of the year – including during the Christmas period.
Portmeirion – whose brands include Spode, Royal Worcester, Pimpernel, Wax Lyrical and Nambe – says it now expects sales to be "at least" £95 million – which is five per cent above current market expectations.
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The update said: "We continue to navigate the well-publicised disruption and cost inflation within global supply chains.
"The impact of these short-term pressures and particularly significantly higher costs for container shipping rates will limit, in the immediate short term, the upside on profit from our higher sales in 2021.
"However, we believe the challenges in global shipping and labour shortages will be short-term in nature and, with the strong trading, will not impact current consensus market expectations of profit for the current period or, in the longer term, our margins and ability to grow as a business."
The business also made reference to the well-documented issues around rising energy prices.
It added: "We note the widespread press in recent weeks on energy intensive industries. We have made significant progress in recent years in reducing our energy usage and will continue to invest in ‘green’ initiatives as a core part of our strategy.
"As a central part of our business, our ceramics factory in Stoke-on-Trent buys energy under long term contracts and in the first half of 2021 we extended those contracts until early 2024.
"As a result, we do not expect to be materially impacted by the latest rising energy prices."
Portmeirion chief executive Mike Raybould said: "We are delighted to see the strong levels of demand for our brands around the world.
"Our focused strategy is transforming our business and our growth is being driven by our ongoing development of online channels, new product launches and expanding international markets.
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"Whilst there are undoubtedly short-term cost and margin pressures within global supply chains, we are managing any current impact on the business and we are confident in our expectation that we can grow our operating margins over the next three years."
