Burberry says new stores have helped increase sales in the first quarter after a challenging start to the year.

The group said contributions from nine new outlets opened in the last year had increased retail sales by approximately 21% in the three months to June 30. Burberry, which has 70 stores world-wide, partially floated on the London Stock Exchange last July and was spun out from majority stakeholder, Argos owner GUS, through a share offering.

Chief Executive Rose Marie Bravo has been credited with reviving the brand's popularity. Total revenues in the first quarter increased 18%, or 17% excluding the group's acquisition last July of a distributor in Korea, against the same period last year. Total retail sales increased by 33%, boosted by the Korea acquisition, and accounted for about 53% of total revenues in the quarter.

Comparable store sales, which declined modestly during the first seven weeks of the period, benefited from a strong summer promotional period and recorded a marginal gain for the quarter as a whole. After the costs of its share offering, which included £22 million to set up employee share ownership plans, Burberry posted pre-tax profits of £85.1 million for the year to March 31, against £84.8 million the year before.

Ms Bravo received an annual salary of about £920,000 last year plus a performance related bonus and share options.