Ocado sales hum as new robot warehouse gets up to speed

(Sharecast News) - Ocado kept up the pace of growth in the third quarter as its fourth and most-technologically advanced robot-operated warehouse quickly got up to speed.Revenues of £348.6m in the 13 weeks to 2 September rose 11.5% on the same period last year. This was broadly in line with the first-half run-rate of 11.7% and in line with guidance for the full year.Average orders per week in the third quarter grew 11.4% on last year to 283,000, but were down on the 291,000 in the first half of the year. The average order size of £106.26 was flat on last year, but again down on the average basket of £108.18 in the first half.Cash at the start of September was down to £406.1m from the £447.6m three months earlier, with external debt up to £281.2m from the £164.6m external net cash at the end of the first half.Chief executive Tim Steiner said the company's fourth customer fulfilment centre, at Erith in South London, opened on time and on budget, and last week processed over 20,000 customer orders 14 weeks after opening, a number which took the third CFC at Andover 15 months to achieve."At full capacity, this latest state-of-the-art CFC will be the largest automated warehouse for online grocery in the world," he boasted, with deals signed in recent months to roll similar designs out to supermarket groups in France, Scandinavia, Canada and the US in coming years."We are on track to deliver a significant number of new CFCs for our Solutions partners in the coming years and as such are fulfilling our goal of changing the way the world shops," Steiner added.Shares in Ocado rose almost 2% to 929.31p in early trading on Tuesday.On the one hand the trading statement shows sales progressing as expected, wrote analysts Greg Lawless and Clive Black at Shore Capital. "That said, we question with Erith now operational why sales growth is not higher year-on-year and wonder what impact this will have on the operating margin in the short term.""In terms of international licences, whilst we welcome the international deals, we continue to question their materiality. We ask when will these international deals make a fundamental difference to both the revenues and earnings line and what they will do for ROCE." 0151 600 3701