e supermarket Ocado in the six weeks to 5 January grew 21.3% to £111.1 million, which the company says reflected extra capacity and strong trading in the run up to Christmas. Average order size rose 0.8% to £111.60 in the period.The strong growth beat estimates from analysts participating in a Bloomberg News survey of 19.5% improvement.
Tim Steiner, Ocado chief executive officer, said that they 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.”
The English company, based in Hatfield, said retail sales climbed 20% in the 16 weeks to 1 December.
“While we are encouraged by this current trading, the retail environment remains both challenging and competitive, with consumer sentiment subdued,” Steiner said in today’s statement. “We expect to continue growing broadly in line with, or slightly ahead of, the market.”
Ocado was the best-performing stock on the FTSE 350 Index last year, climbing more than fivefold, after a 25-year agreement to partner up with Morrisons. The hope now for the company is that they can secure deals overseas.
