Zalando: Q3 revenues rise 28.7 percent

Zalando has reported a 28.7 percent increase in its third quarter sales to 1,074.7 million euros (1,245 million dollars). For the same period, the company achieved a positive adjusted EBIT of 0.4 million euros (0.46 million dollars).

Commenting on the third quarter results, Co-CEO Rubin Ritter said in a media release: “The very strong revenue growth in the third quarter underlines our growth focus and shows that our investments already pay off. For the fourth quarter as well as the coming years, we continue to focus on growth with the goal to double our business by 2020 and remain willing to further invest to reach this ambition.”

Zalando achieves sales growth in DACH region and Europe

The company added that it achieved 22.3 percent rise to 497.7 million euros (576 million dollars) in the DACH region and further expanded its business in the Rest of Europe region by 30.9 percent to 489.7 million euros (567 million dollars). In the third quarter, Zalando increased active customers by one million to 22.2 million quarter-on-quarter, which the company added was the highest absolute growth since the second quarter of 2015. At the same time order frequency increased to a record average of 3.8 times per active customer in the last twelve months.

The company continues to expect revenue growth in the upper half of its guided range of 20-25 percent, despite a weaker than expected October. As a result, Zalando forecasts adjusted EBIT margin in the fourth quarter to be slightly below last year’s strong level, leading to a full year adjusted EBIT margin of slightly below 5 percent.

In the third quarter, key investments included the further build-out of Zalando’s logistics and technology infrastructure to ensure future capacity for its growing customer base and to enable partner services. The company said fulfilment hub in Lahr is now live with initial automated processes and is further ramping up capacity. First parcels left the new logistic sites in Gryfino near Szczecin as well as in Brunna near Stockholm, which started test operations. In addition, Zalando recently announced a second fulfilment hub in Poland, which will be located in Gluchow near Lodz, where construction will start in November 2017.

First nine months revenues up 23.9 percent

In the first nine months of 2017, Zalando grew revenues by 23.9 percent to 3,155.3 million (3,657 million dollars) and achieved an adjusted EBIT of 102.5 million euros (118 million dollars), which corresponds to a margin of 3.2 percent.

Capital expenditure in the first nine months of 2017 was 175.6 million euros (203 million dollars), excluding M&A, reflecting investments primarily into logistics infrastructure and in-house developed software. Zalando continues to aim for about 250 million euros (289 million dollars) capital expenditure in 2017, excluding M&A.

Image: Zalando