Shares plunge for Naked Wines after bleak sales guidance warning
Naked Wines’ shares tumbled by around 40 per cent on Thursday after the online wine retailer warned its sales would take a hit this year.
The London-listed retailer cautioned its shareholders that sales could plunge by as much as four per cent in the year to the end of March.
Naked Wines would “not pursue growth at any cost,” Nick Devlin, group chief executive, said on Thursday morning.
The firm intends to trade “at or around breakeven this year,” the wine boss said.
Devlin added: “We believe this is the responsible balance to strike in FY23, mindful of the levels of macro-economic uncertainty but also of the opportunities we see ahead and the potential for disruptive models like ours to gain traction in tough times as consumers reevaluate their purchasing choice.”
In full-year results posted on Thursday, the retailer revealed that total sales had increased five per cent year on year to £350.3m.
The company’s ‘Active Angel’ subscriptions swelled by nine per cent to 964,000, versus the previous year.
It comes as statisticians from the Office for National Statistics placed inflation at 9.1 per cent on Wednesday, with warnings that energy bills could reach nearly £3,000 per year in January, the coldest month of the year.