N Brown sales growth accelerates since April

LONDON (Reuters) - Home shopping company N Brown Group (BWNG.L) reported an acceleration in sales growth on Tuesday, as its focus on older shoppers who require larger sizes gave it resilience to the consumer slowdown.

The Manchester, northern England-based company, which benefits from supplying women's sizes not generally available on the high street and whose customers have an average age of 58, said it expects to deliver further progress in the rest of the year.

"The average age of our customers means that many don't have a mortgage and are not exposed to factors such as changes in interest rates. For many, if they want something in their size, we are one of the few places they can get it," Chief Executive Alan White said in an interview.

N Brown, which offers the JD Williams, Simply Be, Fashion World and Oxendales home shopping catalogues, benefited from customers trading down during the last recession in the early 1990s.

However, White said the emergence of discount retailers such as Associated British Foods' (ABF.L) Primark and the entry into the low-cost clothing market of supermarkets such as Tesco (TSCO.L) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N) Asda had since changed the dynamics of the industry.

"We'll get some benefit from people not wanting the associated costs with going to the high street but we won't be competing on price with the lower end of the market," he said.

White said N Brown gives an option to shoppers looking to spread credit but emphasised that the average balance on customers' accounts was only around 250 pounds.

Analysts played down the possibility of concerns over bad debt issues.

"Bad debt remains under control. N Brown has seen almost no deterioration in the bad debt profile of its established customer base, with bad debts from new customers within plan," said Numis analyst Nick Coulter.