Chocolate maker Hotel Chocolat to cut discounts this holiday season

(Reuters) - Hotel Chocolat said on Thursday it would cut back on discounts this holiday season as the British luxury chocolate maker swung to an annual loss on one-off charges due to U.S. store closures and the restructuring of a Japanese joint venture.

"Our decisions to focus on full-price sales and quality over quantity, coupled with a resurgence of physical store performance means that we anticipate December will be busier than ever," it said in a statement.

The chocolatier said a majority of its Christmas gift range is priced between 2.5 pounds and 8.5 pounds.

Hotel Chocolat posted a statutory loss of 9.4 million pounds ($11.4 million) for fiscal 2022 that ended June 26, compared with a profit of 3.7 million pounds a year earlier.

Underlying pretax profit came in at 21.7 million pounds, on revenue of 226.1 million pounds for the year.

Analysts are expecting a profit of 9.6 million pounds on revenue of 236 million pounds for fiscal 2023, according to a company-compiled consensus.

Hotel Chocolat said it was adopting a "prudent" approach on its outlook for the year.

(This story has been corrected to fix the sixth paragraph to say consensus is for the current trading year, not reported year) ($1 = 0.8275 pounds)

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)