Global Fashion Group continues to power ahead in Q1

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 12, 2021

Global Fashion Group said on Wednesday that it saw a strong Q1 as it attracted more customers to its various websites and enjoyed a solid recovery in repeat customers. It also attracted more brands to its business and its marketplace net merchandise value (MNMV) almost doubled.

It came as the owner of the Dafiti, Lamoda, Zalora and The Iconic webstores reported what it called “exceptional growth rates" across its various regions. Growth in Latin America was particularly pleasing at 28.7%, given the challenging macro environment and difficult pandemic situation. It added that the ANZ operation — Australia and New Zealand — “serves as a benchmark for post-pandemic recovery” with “going-out categories rebounding in line with regional growth”, even though lockdown categories continued to perform well.

So let’s look at the numbers. It saw total net merchandise value (NMV) rising 37.8% at constant currency (CCY), way ahead of the 13.1% increase GFG saw in Q1 2020. Growth at current exchange rates (CER) was a smaller 20.9%, to €449.9 million, but this was still impressive.

Its revenue was up 26.6% (CCY) — again, beating the 13.1% rise of a year ago — with an 11% CER rise to €301.3 million. And, as mentioned at the start, MNMV surged. It grew by 98.5%, with that segment achieving 35.9% participation. 

GFG said it saw active customer growth of 25.8% and NMV per active customer rose 3.6% to €121.90.

The gross margin at 44.1% was up from 40.6%, but the adjusted EBITDA margin dropped to 3.8% from 8.3%. The company achieved adjusted EBITDA of €11.5 million, down from €22.7 million a year ago. But gross profit rose to €132.9 million from €110.1 million.

The company also repeated its guidance for the full year and expects NMV to grow by more than 25%, with revenue to be around €1.5 billion on a constant currency basis. It also expects a modest improvement in adjusted EBITDA.

Co-CEOs Christoph Barchewitz and Patrick Schmidt said: “As e-commerce adoption continues at pace, we benefited from a broad view of how customers are responding across four very diverse markets. With 1.5 million new customers and the stronger performance in markets where Covid restrictions have been lifted, we are very optimistic about delivering on our ambition to build a €10 billion NMV business.”