The Hamburg online fashion retailer About You SE was also able to increase its sales significantly in the 2021/22 financial year. However, the operating loss was higher than in the previous year due to investments. This emerges from preliminary figures presented by the company on Tuesday.
According to this, sales in the financial year ended February amounted to 1,730 to 1,755 billion euros. This corresponded to growth of 48.3 to 50.5 percent compared to the previous year. According to the figures available, the loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) adjusted for special effects rose to between 60 and 70 million euros. In 2020/21 it was 35.5 million euros. The adjusted EBITDA margin fell from -3.0 percent in the previous year to -3.4 to -4.0 percent.
Investments weigh on the result
The company justified the higher shortfall with “strategic investments in European expansion”. According to its own statements, it is now active in 23 countries outside the core DACH region. The company explained that the “success of the market entry campaigns in southern Europe and the Nordic countries” contributed “to the acquisition of new customers” and thus to the strong growth in sales.
According to the figures available, About You was able to increase its sales by 30.2 to 38.4 percent to between 400 and 425 million euros in the fourth quarter. The company emphasized that the strong growth was achieved “despite challenging market conditions due to the restrictions and delivery bottlenecks caused by Covid-19”. Adjusted EBITDA was therefore -4 to -15 million euros in the final quarter. In the same period of the previous year, the e-commerce specialist had still achieved a positive result of EUR 2.4 million on this basis.
Co-CEO Müller sees “all set goals” fulfilled
Co-founder and co-CEO Tarek Müller drew a positive conclusion of the past year: “We are proud of what About You has achieved in the last year. Since our IPO in June 2021, About You has met all of our goals,” he said in a statement. “We continue to make significant progress on our growth drivers to improve the online store, grow our retail and B2B businesses and become profitable.”
The figures available show “how robust About You’s business model is, even in a volatile market environment,” explained Müller and was “optimistic” that the online retailer could achieve its long-term goals. Specifically, the company is aiming for “break-even at group level” for the 2023/2024 financial year. According to plans, two years later group sales should reach 5 billion euros.
The company intends to publish its full results for 2021/22 and specific forecasts for the current year on May 24.