The European e-commerce giant Zalando has continued to grow strongly in the second quarter of 2014. Today the company announced that it reached group revenues of €1,020-1,060 million in the first half-year 2014, compared to the first half year of 2013 reaching € 809 million. The favourable trend towards break-even observed in Q1 2014 has accelerated, leading to a profitable Q2 at group level and a first half-year group EBIT margin around break-even (compared to -9% in the first half year of 2013). The significant margin improvement was driven by all major cost line items, including cost of sales, fulfillment and marketing.
Rubin Ritter, Member of the Management Board, stated: “The development in Q2 is very positive, as it combines continued strong growth with a very significant improvement in margin. Based on this development we reiterate our plan to take a significant step towards, but not quite reaching, EBIT break-even at group level for the full year 2014,”.
In the second quarter of 2014, group revenues amounted to €520 million – €560 million (with Q2 2013 hitting €437 million). Operational highlights include the ongoing and on-track ramping up of operations at the fulfillment centre in Mönchengladbach and the successful roll out of the mobile app across all international markets, resulting in a mobile traffic share of 41% during Q2 and over 3.8 million app downloads by the end of Q2.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Berlin, Zalando is rumoured to be planning an IPO in the 3rd quarter of 2014. The recent openness of Zalando regarding its revenues and profitability supports this presumption, so let’s keep our eyes open!
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