One of Britain’s best-known brands is expected to report its lowest annual profit in four years on Tuesday, as sales continue to drag for Marks & Spencer. The department store is forecast by analysts to report a profit before tax and one-off items of £640 million to £670 million tomorrow, with a consensus of £658 million, according to a company poll.

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Sainsbury’s on Wednesday revealed it had met analysts’ forecasts for the Christmas trading period, with sales at stores open over a year up 0.9 per cent. Total third quarter sales rose 3.3 per cent excluding fuel in the 14 weeks to 5 January, Sainsbury’s third financial quarter, which was the retailer’s 32nd consecutive quarter of underlying sales growth.

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Next has raised its full-year profit forecast as it reported back on a lift in sales in the run-up to Christmas. Having overtaken Marks & Spencer as the UK’s largest clothing retailer by sales in early 2012, Next said total sales from 1 November to Christmas Eve rose 3.9 per cent from a year earlier, while online sales were up 11.2 per cent.

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The UK’s biggest retailer is this week expected to post a fall in sales despite undergoing a £1 billion turnaround strategy. According to the Telegraph, the City is forecasting like-for-like sales could drop up to 1 per cent for Tesco’s third quarter, compared with a 0.1 per cent rise in the second quarter this year.

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Christmas arrives at Selfridges London's Food Hall. Christmas sales are set to grow by 1 per cent this December for the UK, according to a new report by Deloitte, although with inflation standing at 2.5 per cent, sales volumes will fall. Figures published by Deloitte on Monday forecast total retail sales in December, excluding fuel, of £36.6 billion, up from £36.2 billion for December 2011.

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The online marketplace saw sales and profit grow at a faster rate than expected for its first quarter, thanks to strong gains in the company’s Marketplaces and PayPal businesses. The first quarter saw eBay’s online marketplace receive a surge of new users with transactions through mobile devices reporting strong growth.

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E-commerce sales in China are estimated to grow 20.41 per cent annually until 2016, according to the latest research from Forrester Research Inc. The Internet Retailer reported that Chinese e-commerce will generate USD 169.4 billion (GBP 106.15 billion) in sales this year alone. With a population surpassing 1.3 billion, China is already the leading e-commerce market in terms of sales for Asia-Pacific, although just 40 per cent of Chinese consumers purchase goods online.

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Shares in Abercrombie & Fitch dropped 11 per cent on Thursday after the retailer forecast earnings well below analysts’ expectations. Abercrombie said an aggressive promotional environment had forced it to make bigger discounts and add pressure to margins during its fourth quarter, during which it also planned to make a number of store closures.

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On Thursday, Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. reported that the Q1 net income had grown at a double-digit pace, although the full-year forecast had been cut due to Uniqlo's weak performance in its homeland Japan.

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HTC, the world’s fifth-largest smartphone group by sales has cut its revenue forecasts, citing a slowdown in the global economy and increased competition sending its shares to their lowest level in 16 months. The Taiwanese smartphone maker reduced its forecasts about 20 per cent for the key fourth quarter of the year, announcing it expects no growth compared to the same period last year, when revenues were TWD104 billion (GBP 2.19 billion).

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