The group said it was budgeting for autumn and winter sales to be down by between four per cent and seven per cent, while it said the economic situation meant it must prepare for another tough year in the 2009/10 trading period.
Chief executive Simon Wolfson said trading remained `very volatile'.
"The good weeks are very good and the bad weeks are very bad. I don't think they (trading conditions) are necessarily going to get worse, I can't see any immediate improvement,"
Profits for six months to the end of July fell to £173.5m from £198.2m, but this was slightly ahead of City forecasts.
The group also said its projection for annual profits remained in line with City forecasts for a surplus of between £400m and £440m.
Next said its resilient performance reflected tighter control on stock levels, resulting in a 20 per cent reduction in items in the end of season sale, coupled with ongoing efforts to improve the quality and design of its clothing.
And by the end of the financial year it expects to have invested £40m in store refits, meaning 69 per cent of its space will be new or redecorated.
Its portfolio grew to 506 stores in the period, with another 225,000 square feet of store space due to open in the second half of the year.
Next pointed out that just one of its 458 "mainline" stores was loss-making, with 311 sites generating surpluses of 20 per cent or more. As a result it said it did not expect the current economic environment to lead to significantly more closures than would be seen normally.
In the company's Directory business sales were at the top end of expectations following a rise of 2.2 per cent on last year. Growth was driven by an increase of 1.5 per cent in the average number of active customers and an increase of 17.2 per cent in pages.
Next's shares have halved in value over the last year
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