Asos on course for £ 1bn target
ONLINE fashion retailer Asos said youngsters were abandoning high street clothes shops on Saturday afternoons, helping it to boost profits and setting it on course towards £ 1billion global sales.
Asos, whose celebrity fans include Samantha Cameron, posted a 37 per cent leap in annual profits to £ 54.7million on revenues 39 per cent smarter at £ 769million. UK sales had returned to “heady days” up 34 per cent with international demand rocketing 44 per cent. The group, which now has 7 million customers around the world, said its £ 1billion sales target was “in its sights” and could come by the end of 2014, a year ahead of schedule.
Chief executive Nick Robertson said it had benefi ted from a change in shopping attitudes by its core twentysomething customers. “We haven’t cracked the fi nancial crisis. We are doing well because young shoppers are buying up to 80 per cent of their clothes online. They couldn’t think of anything worse than going down Oxford Street on a weekend. They are staying at home and logging on to our website,” he said.
Robertson said best sellers over the period included skater dresses and denim shorts with its own brands and clothes from retailers such as New Look and River Island also doing well. “We want to be a gateway, the Selfridges, for other retailers to sell their clothes online to a global audience. Zara and H& M will soon start knocking on our door and we won’t say no,” he said.
Asos is also planning to ramp up investment spending £ 110million over the next two years on new technology to meet rising demand for mobile shopping and a new warehouse in northern Europe. It is also set to launch a dedicated Chinese website. “The stars are lining up and we are ready to step- on again. I don’t see any threats out there for us,” Robertson said.
Asos shares fell 208p to 5205p, off recent all- time highs of 5700p.