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LONDON (Alliance News) - Gear4music (Holdings) PLC Wednesday reported a widened pretax loss in the first half of its financial year as it continued investing in the business following AIM flotation, but sales rose as it increased website visits and customer numbers.
The online musical instrument retailer, which listed on AIM in June, said its pretax loss in the six months ended August 31 widened to GBP1.1 million from GBP914,000 the year before, even though revenue grew to GBP12.5 million from GBP8.8 million.
Revenue was boosted by an increase in customer numbers and website visits in both the UK and Europe, but profit was hit by a rise in marketing and administrative costs.
"I am delighted to report our debut interim results as a plc which show good strategic progress as we continue to grow our presence as a leading online retailer of musical instruments and equipment. We are seeing increasing appetite from customers as we improve our branded and own-brand product offering, our website interface, back-end systems and service levels, both in the UK and across Europe," Chief Executive Andrew Wass said in a statement.
"Since our IPO we have accelerated investment across the business - in the ecommerce platform, in stock and in people - to ensure we are strongly positioned to deliver on our growth strategy. The group continues to trade with good momentum and in line with the board's expectations and is well-placed heading into the key Christmas trading period," he added.
Shares in Gear4music were trading up 1.9% at 145.18 pence Wednesday morning.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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