AO Profits Beat Expectations

AO World plc, the UK's most trusted electrical retailer, today announces its audited financial results for the financial year ended 31 March 2024.

The strong profit performance above the top end of the previous range illustrates the successful execution of the groups plan to pivot the business to focus on profit and cash generation. This now provides a strong foundation as the business moves back to being a double digit revenue growth business in the year ahead. 

Financial highlights 

• Good progress on profit performance delivered in the year - Adjusted profit before tax of £34.3m, up £22.3m YoY, with a PBT margin of 3.3%.
  
  
• Revenue performance was as expected following the decisive actions taken to remove non-core channels and loss-making sales and returning to growth in Q4.
  
  
• Strengthened the balance sheet, with overall liquidity⁴ of £116m (2023: £89m) at 31 March 2024, and net funds of £34.4m (2023: £3.6m).
  
  
• £80m Revolving Credit Facility extended until April 2027.

Operational highlights

• Strategic pivot to focus on profit and cash generation successfully delivered, with continued focus on driving efficiencies and controlling overheads.
  
  
• AO remains a UK market leader in Major Domestic Appliances ("MDA") with a 15% total market share.
  
  
• Over 600,000 new customers⁵ experienced the AO Way during the year, with repeat customers (who accounted for 54% of all customers) taking an increasing share of overall business.
  
  
• Customer satisfaction scores remain best in class, with over 500,000 Trustpilot⁶ ratings, averaging an "Excellent" 4.8/5 stars - as we continue to be the UK's most trusted electrical retailer.
  
  
• Despite the difficult loss-making trading experienced in our mobile business in the year, we look forward to FY25. We have strengthened our position in the mobile market with the acquisition of intellectual property rights in and to the websites www.affordablemobiles.co.uk and www.buymobiles.net, giving us additional sale channels from which to grow our mobile business, in a challenging market.
  
  
• Recycled or refurbished our seven millionth appliance at our AO Recycling facility and continuing to work with third-parties to use our recycled plastic in new products.

Outlook

Despite the ongoing macro-economic challenges our objectives remain unchanged and we are confident in our ability to deliver on our ambition for double digit revenue growth in FY25 alongside adjusted PBT of £36m to £41m. We reiterate our medium-term guidance of adjusted PBT margin of 5%, double digit growth and EPS growing faster than revenue.

AO's Founder and Chief Executive, John Roberts, said: 

"We have made good progress on our profit performance in FY24, which is a testament to the success of our strategic pivot to focusing on profit and cash generation.

"We are now a much simpler, more efficient business and are performing better than ever for customers, with excellent and sustainable unit economics.

"Our focus now is on delivering profitable top line growth with an ambition for double digit revenue growth in FY25.

"During the year we passed the milestone of 500,000 Trustpilot reviews, with an increased Trust score of 4.8 out of 5. This ranks AO as the leading and most trusted UK retailer for the combination of volume and quality and is an output of the amazing service we deliver every day for customers at scale.

"None of this has happened by accident. All AOers have worked tirelessly to deliver this performance and I would like to thank them all. As ever, I'm also extremely grateful to our suppliers, partners and shareholders for their ongoing support."

Source : AO World plc

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