Boohoo half-year revenue up 50% to £395m

Manchester-based online fashion giant Boohoo.com plc said on Wednesday its revenue soared 50% to £395.3 million and profit before tax rose 22% to £24.7 million in the six months to August 31, 2018.

Revenue at the boohoo brand rose 15% to £209 million, while revenue at its PrettyLittleThing division soared 132% to £168.6 million and revenue at the Nasty Gal brand rose 111% to £17.7 million.

In its guidance, Boohoo.com said group revenue growth for the year to February 28, 2019, is expected to be 38% to 43%, up from our previous guidance of 35% to 40%.

“We reiterate our medium term guidance to deliver sales growth of at least 25% per annum and EBITDA margin of 10%,” said the company. 

Boohoo.com joint CEOs Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane said: “Our group results for the first half year show yet another strong performance, delivering record sales and profits.

“All of our brands performed extremely well across all territories as we continue to gain market share.

“We achieved market-leading growth in all markets, with Rest of Europe and the USA being particularly pleasing.

“Growth in the UK, our largest market, remains very strong.

“We successfully executed a major relocation of the distribution centre for PrettyLittleThing, which represents a key milestone as we develop a distribution network capable of generating £3 billion of net sales globally, in line with our vision to lead the fashion eCommerce market.

“This relocation was carried out with a low level of disruption to the operations of PrettyLittleThing and is a credit to the project team.

“Our extended distribution centre in Burnley, which will have a significant element of automation to drive efficiency savings, is scheduled for operational use in 2019.”

Earlier this month, Boohoo.com said John Lyttle will join the firm as chief executive with effect from March 15, 2019, with a compensation package that could reach as much as £50 million.

Lyttle is currently the chief operating officer of Primark Stores Limited, a division of Associated British Foods.

Kamani will become group executive chairman of the company with effect from March 15, 2019.

Kane will remain on the main board in an executive role and will assume the title of group co-founder and executive director with effect from March 15, 2019.