RE: News?19 Jul 2022 17:24
Trading Updateeve has now essentially completed the three year rebuild strategy, aimed at positioning the business for sustained growth across all of its geographic and product markets. This was built on a planned 10% year-on-year UK&I revenue growth in 2022 with our direct to consumer business performing well ahead of this. eve continues to outperform a market which is estimated for the first four months of 2022 to be down 29% year-on-year in the UK (source: IMRG Capgemini) and down 37% year-on-year in France (source: FEVAD). Over the five months to 29 May and against challenging year-on-year comparatives, eve’s direct to consumer sales orders in the UK&I are down 15% and down 3% in France. Good progress continues on the business fundamentals. The retail partnership with DFS, which initially launched in March solely on the dfs.co.uk website, has been extended to cover some of the store estate and with an increased product range. In May, eve launched its new CBD sub-brand ‘Well Slept’ with its own website. The plan to enable selling into the Belgium market is on track to complete this month. Trading is benefitting from the C4 sponsorship, which runs for 12 months from April 2022 on ‘late nights on 4.’ As a result of this recent progress, sales orders for the direct to consumer business for the last three weeks have grown 2% in the UK year-on-year, and 40% in France. At the Group level, eve has achieved year-on-year sales growth in each of the last three weeks. However, eve is, like all direct to consumer businesses, exposed to ongoing weaknesses in the economy, declining consumer confidence and rising inflation, both in the wider consumer landscape and in input prices. These headwinds are slowing eve’s progress toward its strategic and financial goals. Based on the first five months of trading, and its expectation that the cost of living crisis is set to continue for some time, the Board does not now expect to meet its previous revenue expectations for the current year, with additional promotional activity also having an impact on gross margins. This will have a consequential impact on the Company's anticipated cash balances as the year progresses