Boohoo Q1 sales surge, full-year revenue guidance lifted

Online fashion retailer Boohoo.com reported a rise in revenue for the three months to the end of May as it lifted its full-year sales guidance.

Revenue surged 106% to £120.1m, or 98% at constant currency. For core brand Boohoo, revenue was up 48% to £86.4m, with sales in the UK up 41% and in Europe up 44%. Boohoo had 5.2m active customers in the period, up 24% on the previous year.

PrettyLittleThing contributed for the first time with £30.7m of sales in the first quarter, while Nasty Gal generated £2.9m in revenues.

Joint chief executives Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane said: "Our performance in the first quarter has been very encouraging across all brands and geographic regions. While it is early in the financial year, boohoo continues to perform well and PrettyLittleThing delivered exceptionally strong revenue growth in the first quarter as it continues to expand its young female customer base. Nasty Gal has made a promising start since we acquired the brand, with revenues growing strongly month-on-month, as we increased the product range."

As a result of "very strong momentum in Q1", the company now expects revenue growth for the full year to February 2018 to be around 60%, up from previous guidance of 50%. Group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation are expected to be in line with previous guidance at around 10%.

In addition, the company confirmed that it has successfully raised £50m of gross proceeds through the placing of 22.7m shares at 220p each. Boohoo also announced plans to build a new automated super-site of over 600,000 square feet, which will provide it with over £2bn of net sales capacity, in addition to the £1bn net sales being provided by the extended Burnley site.

Liberum upgraded Boohoo to 'buy' from 'hold' and hiked the price target to 300p from 185p

"The performance in the first quarter has been very encouraging across all brands and geographic regions. While it is early in the financial year, boohoo continues to perform well and PrettyLittleThing delivered exceptionally strong revenue growth in the first quarter as it continues to expand its young female customer base. Nasty Gal has made a promising start and we would expect to see month-on-month improvement as the product range is increased."

At 0948 BST, the shares were up 9.4% to 242.25p.