24th Nov 2015 08:04
LONDON (Alliance News) - AO World PLC on Tuesday reported that it swung to a loss in the first half as it invested in its German operations, booked start-up costs in other parts of Europe and revealed plans to launch in the Netherlands.
The online retailer of domestic appliances said it made a GBP8.0 million pretax loss in the six months ended September 30, compared with a pretax profit of about GBP800,000 in the corresponding half the prior year. Revenue rose by 22% to GBP264.3 million.
The company said that the second half of its financial year has started well "although we still have peak trading ahead of us, including Black Friday later this week. In the UK we are on track with our plans for the year as a whole".
"Our early success in Germany has given us the confidence to continue to invest heavily in marketing to drive revenue growth. Given this we expect to maintain at least the level of net P&L investment made in the first half of the year through the second half," AO World said in a statement.
"Whilst we will incur some early set up costs for our operations in the Netherlands this financial year we do not expect a material impact to group adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation," the company added.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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