Ocado Group PLC

Earnings Release • Jan 16, 2014

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RNS Number : 7695X

Ocado Group PLC

16 January 2014

16 January 2014

Ocado Group plc

Update on Q4 2013, Christmas Trading, Morrisons.com launch

·      Gross sales (Retail) for the 16 weeks to 1 December 2013 up 20.1% to £271.0 million (2012: £225.7 million).

·      Gross sales (Retail) for the six trading weeks to 5 January 2014 up 21.3% to £111.1 million (2012: £91.6 million), reflecting extra capacity and strong trading in the seven days up to Christmas.

·      Morrisons.com launched successfully, with first deliveries made on 10 January 2014 as planned.

Tim Steiner, Chief Executive Officer of Ocado, said:

"We are pleased with the progress in our underlying trading reflecting the further improvements to our proposition to customers and consumers' increasing desire to shop online for their groceries.

"We exited 2013 with a strong Quarter 4 performance which continued into the start of 2014. The 7 days leading up to Christmas were particularly strong with sales up nearly 29%, and several days of over £5 million of sales, helped by the additional fulfilment capacity that we put in place during 2013.

"We are pleased to have enabled the launch of Morrisons.com, on schedule and as planned. This has been possible due to the strength of our best in class technology platform, the efforts of the teams involved at Ocado, and the continuing strong collaboration with Morrisons.

"While we are encouraged by this current trading, the retail environment remains both challenging and competitive, with consumer sentiment subdued, and we expect to continue growing broadly in line with, or slightly ahead of, the market."

Q4 2013

	16 weeks to 1 December 2013	16 weeks to 2 December 2012	Growth %
Gross sales (Retail)	£271.0m	£225.7m	20.1%
Average orders per week	151,743	127,434	19.1%
Average order size (Retail)	£111.6	£110.7	0.8%

FY 2013 (52 week basis)

	52 weeks to 1 December 2013	52 weeks to 2 December 2012	Growth %
Gross sales (Retail)	£843.0m	£719.0m	17.2%
Gross sales (Group)	£852.5m	£719.0m	18.6%

The Preliminary Results Announcement will be made on 4 February 2014.

Contacts

·      Duncan Tatton-Brown, Chief Financial Officer, on 01707 228 000

·      David Hardiman-Evans, Head of IR & Corporate Finance, on 01707 228 000

·      David Shriver or Katharine Wynne, Tulchan Communications on 020 7353 4200.

Notes

1.     Gross sales (Retail) refers to the results of Ocado.com and Fetch.co.uk, our retail operations. Shown separately are the Ocado Group plc gross sales figures including the benefits from the Morrisons agreement.

2.     The figures used in this announcement are as yet unaudited.

3.     A copy of this trading update is available on www.ocadogroup.com

Cautionary statement

Certain statements made in this announcement are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from any expected future events or results expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Persons receiving this announcement should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, regulation or accounting standard, Ocado does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

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