Virgin Wines revenue up 63% on pre-Covid levels

Online wine retailer, Virgin Wines, has revealed that the company’s revenue is up 63% on a three-year, pre-Covid basis, compared to the FY19 result of £42.4m, highlighting that the business has retained much of the substantial growth achieved during the pandemic. 

However, it is reported that the company has a total revenue of £69m for the year as of 30 June 2022, compared to the FY21 result of £73.6m, which shows a dip in the company’s profits despite “outperforming” competitors and delivering a 9.1% margin. 

Despite widely documented headwinds, the group has also succeeded in retaining much of the substantial growth achieved during the Covid-19 lockdowns, with 63% growth in revenue versus 2019 and 136% increase in profit. This has resulted in market share growth from 6.1% in 2021 to 8.4% in 2022, according to industry benchmark IBISWorld.

In addition, “strict” discipline has been maintained in relation to the company’s customer acquisition strategy with cost per recruit below budget and FY21 levels. Outperformance against customer acquisition targets in Q4 following the onboarding of a number of new partnerships has reportedly led to an increased total investment over this period. 

The group also has strong momentum in customer acquisition heading into 2023, with Q22 acquisitions up 37% year-on-year, and a comprehensive pipeline of new partnership opportunities, giving optimism for the FY23 customer acquisition strategy.

Jay Wright, chief executive officer at Virgin Wines, said: “The popularity of our unique consumer propositions, our low customer acquisition costs, our high levels of customer retention and the outstanding quality and value of our wines continue to give us great confidence for the future. 

“Our disciplined approach to customer acquisition continues to generate strong returns on investment and our wider strategy and business model continue to position us well to mitigate rising costs and to help us deliver against our growth plans.”