Mytheresa's highest-end full-price focus boosts Q2 GMV

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 23, 2023

Luxury e-tailer Mytheresa reported Q2 results on Thursday and said that general merchandise value (GMV) was up almost 8%, with “strong profitability despite significant macro-economic headwinds”. However, while it remained profitable at a tough time, earnings overall fell at the firm.

GMV rose 7.8% to €215.9 million, which meant growth of 13.7% for the first half as a whole, year on year. The quarterly GMV jump was helped by a 12.7% rise in the US and the total GMV share there expanding to 16.9%.

While GMV growth was approaching double digits, net sales only rose 1.3% to €190.1 million. Yet it saw a 140 basis points rise in gross profit margin to 54.8% due to increased sales from the Curated Platform Model (CPM) generating 100% gross margin with no costs of sales.

Adjusted EBITDA was €17.7 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.3%. But that was against €28.3 million a year ago. And adjusted operating income was down to €14.9 million from €26 million. Meanwhile adjusted net income was €11 million. A year ago it had been €18.9 million, up from €14.8 million a year before that. The company didn’t give any explanation for the falls.

Despite the lower figures, profitability was helped by the number of ‘top customers’ outpacing overall growth with a rise of 25.3% in the second quarter and 26.2% in H1. The company said “high-impact top customer activations [were] held in Europe, the United States and the Middle East with truly 'money can’t buy' experiences”.

CEO Michael Kliger cited the firm’s “clear focus on the true high-end, wardrobe-building luxury customers, and not the aspirational, occasional luxury shoppers who are more likely to be impacted negatively by an economic downturn”.

Overall, the e-tailer saw an increase in average GMV for all customers of 1.9% in Q2, “showing the quality of customer acquisitions” and it reported a “solid number of first-time buyers in one quarter with over 120,000 new customers”.

Mytheresa’s operations were also boosted by the launch of exclusive capsule collections and pre-launches with Loro Piana, Max Mara, Etro, The Row, Oscar de la Renta, Stella McCartney, Christian Louboutin, Givenchy and more. And it saw “strong expansion” in skiwear with capsules and exclusives by Dolce & Gabbana, Khaite, Gucci and Pucci. Plus there was a launch of Moncler Grenoble exclusive products with a “highly impactful shoppable video campaign shot by Mytheresa in Crans Montana with professional skiers”.

The company also confirmed previous guidance for the full year, saying it would see GMV in the range of €865 million to €910 million, representing 16% to 22% growth. Net sales will be in the range of €755 million to €800 million, representing 10% to 16% growth. Adjusted EBITDA should sit between €68 million and €76 million with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 9% to 9.5%.

Michael Kliger concluded: “We have built a very resilient and agile business model. We are global, active across many luxury categories, uniquely focused on full-price selling and we have a high share of cost variability. This enables Mytheresa to deliver strong profitability even at times of slower growth. All of this, along with the consistently high-quality levels of services and creative productions, clearly places us as one of the few winners in the consolidating luxury e-commerce space.”