ASOS bucks slowdown in UK retail

* First (Other OTC: FSTC - news) half profit rises 18 pct

* UK retail sales up 25 pct

* Says on track to hit full-year sales, margin target

* Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) rise up to 6.6 pct (Adds detail, CEO, analyst comment, shares)

By James Davey

LONDON, April 12 (Reuters) - Online fashion retailer ASOS has shrugged off an apparent slowdown in the British economy, with price cuts, an improved mobile phone app and more delivery options helping to drive a 25 percent jump in first-half UK sales.

The firm, whose fast fashion is popular with Internet savvy twentysomethings, met forecasts with an 18 percent rise in first-half profit and said it was on track to hit sales and margin goals for its full financial year.

British consumers reined in spending last month, according to two surveys published on Tuesday which added to signs of a slowing economy. Analysts have blamed faltering global growth and uncertainty ahead of a UK referendum on EU membership in June.

Rival Next last month warned this year could be the toughest since 2008.

"I've not seen a drop through in any of our (UK) numbers," ASOS Chief Executive Nick Beighton told reporters.

"We're continually investing in our prices and looking to improve the delivery propositions to take away the friction and lower the cost of doing business with us. That seems to be working for us right now," he said.

Shares in ASOS (LSE: ASC.L - news) have fallen 18 percent over the last year but rose up to 6.6 percent on Tuesday.

"This is a solid first half for ASOS, particularly when compared with Next (Other OTC: NXGPF - news) 's recent online growth and outlook comments," said RBC Europe analyst Claire Huff, who has an "outperform" rating on the stock.

Established in 2000, ASOS was an early ecommerce success story, but is seeing growing competition from the likes of Zalando (Swiss: OXZALG.SW - news) and Boohoo, as well as from store-based chains improving their online operations.

In the six months to Feb. 29, ASOS grew its active customer base by 17 percent to 10.9 million, with visits to its websites up 21 percent.

ASOS noted more than 60 percent of worldwide customer traffic, and more than 70 percent in the UK, came from mobile devices, driven by technology improvements such as faster navigation and routing customers from email links and Facebook content straight into its app.

Delivery options have also been expanded, with, for example, an extended "click and collect" service with Boots, and a returns option through supermarket Asda.

ASOS made a first-half pretax profit of 21.2 million pounds ($30.2 million) on total retail sales up 24 percent on a constant currency basis to 648.6 million pounds.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) said it was on track for full-year sales growth of about 20 percent and a steady operating margin of 4 percent.

Beighton wants ASOS to concentrate its efforts and investment on its main markets of Britain, France, Germany and the United States. Last week, the firm said it would discontinue local operations in China, with the ASOS.com website now supplying customers there rather than a local website.

($1 = 0.7027 pounds) (Editing by Paul Sandle and Mark Potter)