As expected, the British clothing retailer Boohoo Group Plc closed the first quarter of the 2022/23 financial year with a decline in sales. According to an interim report published on Thursday, sales in the months from March to May amounted to 445.7 million pounds sterling (519.2 million euros). They were thus eight percent below the level of the same quarter of the previous year.
On the British home market, sales of the fast fashion retailer declined for the first time in the company’s history: sales there shrank by one percent to 272.1 million pounds sterling. In the other European countries, sales fell by nine percent (currency-adjusted -7 percent) to 49.6 million British pounds, in the USA by 28 percent (currency-adjusted -26 percent) to 95.0 million British pounds. In the rest of the world, the company was able to increase its revenues by 15 percent (currency-adjusted +15 percent) to 29.0 million British pounds.
The e-commerce specialist justified the decline in sales with the extraordinarily high comparative values of the same period in the previous year, in which customers had switched to online trading due to the shop closures during the Covid 19 pandemic. In addition, delivery problems had a negative impact on business in important foreign markets.
The company highlighted that the UK sales trend has recently been improving month-on-month and reiterated its full-year guidance. For 2022/23, management continues to expect sales growth of a low single-digit percentage. However, the latest results were not well received by investors: Boohoo’s share price immediately fell by more than twelve percent after the interim report was published.