GEAR4MUSIC (HOLDINGS) PLC

Earnings Release • Mar 3, 2017

National Storage Mechanism | Additional information

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RNS Number : 4069Y

Gear4music (Holdings) PLC

03 March 2017

3 March 2017

Gear4music (Holdings) plc

Trading Update

Gear4music (Holdings) plc ("Gear4music" or "the Group"), the largest UK based online retailer of musical instruments and music equipment, today announces a year-end trading update covering the 12 months to 28 February 2017.

£'000	12 months to 28 February 2017	12 months to 29 February 2016	% change
UK sales	34,865	26,016	+34%
European and Rest of the World sales	21,263	9,473	+124%
Total sales	56,128	35,489	+58%

Highlights

·     58% increase in total like-for-like sales following continued strong growth in the UK and Europe

·     186% Scandinavian sales growth between November 2016 - when the Swedish Distribution Centre opened - and February 2017

·     German Distribution Centre now operational

·     Active customer numbers increased by 49% over the year to 339,800

Gear4music's Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Wass, said:

"We are extremely pleased with our trading performance over the last 12 months, with 58% sales growth being well ahead of our expectations at the start of the year.

"As expected, we have achieved especially strong growth in Europe and with our Swedish distribution centre opening in November last year and our German distribution centre commencing operations during the last few weeks, we look forward to building on our success on the continent.

"We remain fully focused on our long-term growth strategy of investing in our people, products, websites and operational capabilities, to continually improve the customer proposition and look forward to further progress in the year ahead.

"Whilst continuing to invest in the future growth of the business, we have closely managed our costs and the Board is now confident of delivering profits for the year marginally ahead of our increased expectations signalled in January."

The Group will report results for the financial year on 9 May 2017.

- Ends -

For further information, please contact

Gear4music                                                                                                                                        +44 20 3128 8100

Andrew Wass, Chief Executive Officer

Chris Scott, Chief Financial Officer

Panmure Gordon                                                                                                                             +44 20 7886 2500

(Financial Adviser, Nominated Adviser and Broker)

Andrew Godber / Peter Steel - Investment Banking

Erik Anderson / Tom Salvesen - Corporate Broking

MHP Communications (Financial PR)                                                                                     +44 20 3128 8100

Andrew Leach

Simon Hockridge

Pete Lambie

Background to Gear4music

Operating from an office, showroom and distribution centre in York, and distribution centres in Sweden and Germany, the Group sells Own-brand musical instruments and music equipment alongside premium third party brands including Fender, Yamaha and Gibson, to customers ranging from beginners to musical enthusiasts and professionals, in the UK, Europe and, more recently, into the Rest of the World.

Having developed its own ecommerce platform, with multilingual, multicurrency and fully responsive design websites covering 19 countries, the Group has rapidly expanded its database and continues to build its overseas presence.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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