Ocado reports 11.7% Q1 revenue growth

Ocado has reported that its revenues for the first quarter were up 11.7% on last year, even though they were “impacted by adverse weather conditions in the final week”.

The company also said it was making good progress with its new fulfilment centres and its partnership with Groupe Casino and Sobey.

In a statement issued today (2o March), Tim Steiner, Ocado’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are pleased to report another quarter of strong underlying sales growth in our retail business in line with our guidance for the year.  

“The reported rate of retail revenue growth over the quarter was broadly the same as in Q4 2017 as we operated at maximum capacity for most of the quarter and were impacted by the winter storms that caused widespread disruption during the final week. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues who nonetheless succeeded in delivering nearly 300,000 orders over the last week of the quarter, often in the most trying conditions.

“Looking forward, we continue to make good progress ramping up our revolutionary new customer fulfilment centre in Andover (CFC3) and we are on track to open our latest facility (CFC4) in Erith in the middle of this year.

“The teams that are delivering the programmes for both Groupe Casino and Sobeys partnerships have been active and making progress.  We remain confident that our Ocado Solutions business will be able to do further deals with the momentum of new signings building over time.

“Taking advantage of the opportunities ahead of us is both challenging and exhilarating. The business is firmly looking forward.”