PLENTY TO SMILE ABOUT
Fashion retailer Boohoo defies the high street gloom as sales soar
BOOHOO HAS posted soaring sales in the first quarter as it pushed ahead with its ambitious expansion plans.
Group sales at the online fashion retailer – which comprises Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing, and Nasty Gal – jumped 53 per cent to £183.6m in the three months to May 31.
Sales in the UK jumped 49 per cent, up from £74.6m to £110.7m, while its sales in the US were up 75 per cent to £31.4m.
The Boohoo brand brought in £97.m, while Pretty Little Thing and Nasty Gal delivered £79.2m and £7.2m respectively in the first quarter of the financial year.
Despite the strong sales growth, Boohoo’s shares fell by 4.1 per cent in early trading to 211p.
The group said it would grow full-year revenue by between 35 per cent and 40 per cent, with underlying earnings expected to rise by up to 10 per cent.
Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, joint chief executives of Boohoo, said: “Our infrastructure continues to see record levels of investment as we invest ahead of our growth curve and develop a distribution network capable of supporting £3bn of net sales globally.”
They said the company’s extension and automation of its Burnley distribution centre would be finished by the end of the financial year, and that Pretty Little Thing would move into its own warehouse in the second half of the year.
The figures from Boohoo stood in stark contrast to the full-year update from New Look, also published on Tuesday.
Our infrastructure continues to see record levels of investment. Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, joint chief executives of Boohoo