Asos sees 20% increase in group revenues

Online retailer Asos has reported a 20% increase in group revenues to £1.6bn, attributed to a “record” Black Friday and “strong” customer engagement activity. 

During the four month period ending 31 December 2019, Asos also saw its total retail sales increase by 20% to £1.7bn compared with £895m the previous year. 

In addition, UK retail sales increased by 18% to £409m compared with £347m in 2018. Overall international retail sales increased by 22% to £666m.

Nick Beighton, Asos CEO, said: “Asos has delivered an encouraging start to the year. Strong customer acquisition activity supported by robust operational performance has driven good momentum in all our markets.

“As we said in October, the focus for this year is to further enhance our capabilities and leverage the investments we have made. It is still early in the year and much remains to be done, but we are encouraged by the progress we have made so far. We remain confident in our ability to capture the substantial opportunity ahead of us.” 

It comes after Asos reported a 68% decrease in profits before tax to £33.1m in October last year.

At the time the retailer said the decrease was the result of transition costs of £45m during the period, up £20m on the prior year reflecting a “substantial” amount of one-off costs in support of its warehouse transitions.

It also incurred £5.5m of restructuring costs reflecting the changes it started to make to its organisation in support of our approach to removing non-strategic cost.