The Hut Group reports 54 % sales growth

Etail specialist The Hut Group has bucked the struggling retail trends by posting strong results for H1 2012.

Sales for the period were up an impressive 54 per cent year-on-year, with revenue jumping from 42.9m in 2011 to 66.2m.

Margins climbed from 0.7 per cent to six per cent thanks to a shift in sectors that saw it distance itself from low-margin businesses like books, music and white label agreements.

The company has also confirmed the appointment of Martin O’Grady as its group operations director. It also successfully renewed and extended its banking facilitates with Barclays in May of this year.

The Hut Group’s database now boasts 6.6 customers while its websites attracted 44.1m visitors, up from 32m the year before. It has shipped 4.7m units to date this year, up from 3.5m.

"The group is positioned as market leader in a number of differentiated and high growth sectors with significant barriers to entry,” chief exec Matthew Moulding stated.

The combination of our market positioning and constant advances in customer insight through data analytics is driving both customer and revenue growth. The group’s gross margin progression is very pleasing and now that we have integrated recent acquisitions and are delivering significant operating leverage, the EBITDA progression is a major highlight.”