Asos on trend with stellar set of sales figures
ONLINE fashion retailer Asos saw its share price soar to a record high of nearly £55 yesterday after stunning the city with a stellar set of quarterly sales figures.
The clothing site, which sells clothes to the lucrative 18 to 24 year old fashion market, said sales rose by almost 50 per cent across June, July and August to £208m.
It prompted the firm to raise pre-tax profit expectations for the full year, sending traders and investors into a buying frenzy and leading shares up by a staggering 13 per cent yesterday.
Asos, which is an acronym for As Seen on Screen, is now well on its way to achieving a £1bn a year sales target, which it hopes to hit by 2015.
It has sold £754m of merchandise this year, most of it in the UK, it said yesterday.
Chief executive Nick Robertson, the great grandson of menswear retailer Austin Reed, said he was “really pleased” with the performance.
“We’ve seen an increase in frequency of purchases, with existing customers coming back more often but also the digital marketing journey we commenced leading to the acquisition of new customers,” he said.
Despite global fashion sales totalling about £200bn a year, Asos has managed to carve out a niche offering styles copied from leading fashionistas such as model Cara Delevingne and pop star Rhianna.
However, Robertson ruled out opening up more websites in new territories over the next 12 months, focusing instead on pushing its digital marketing strategy forward.