Trading Update

Another record quarter, continuing the strong momentum from H1

Sosandar PLC (AIM: SOS), one of the fastest growing fashion brands in the UK, creating quality, trend-led products for women of all ages, is pleased to provide the following trading update covering the three-month Period ended 31 December 2022.                             

Highlights:

• Revenue of £11.6m, up 30% year-on-year (Q3 FY22: £8.9m), a new record quarter
• Strong revenue growth across all sales channels, with a new record quarter for third party partners
• Fifth consecutive quarter of profitability for the Group
• Average order value of £106.37, up 11% from £95.69 in the prior year reflecting customers buying into higher priced items and categories such as outerwear, tailoring and occasion wear
• Improved gross margin at 56.8%, up from 55.8% in Q3 FY22 and a further improvement from 54.4% achieved in H1 FY23
• Net cash of £4.6m as at 31 December 2022 (£4.2m as at 30 September 2022)

The Company is delighted to report another strong trading performance across both the Sosandar website and via its third party partners. Delivering this performance despite the challenging consumer backdrop is testament to the Company’s agility, underpinned by a unique quality product offering, highly effective marketing strategy and increasing brand awareness across its target market.

The Group’s fast-tracked development of specific product categories resonated extremely well with customers, resulting in all identified lines meeting or exceeding management expectations. Across the period, every single product category experienced growth, with knitwear, formal tailoring, coats and partywear performing exceptionally well throughout the Winter season.

The Board remains cognisant of the wider macro-economic challenges and regularly reviews market conditions to ensure that Sosandar is well prepared to adapt to customer trends and mitigate all headwinds. The Group’s performance in FY23 so far has served to validate the strategy, agile business model, dedicated team and highly differentiated quality product that is in demand across all our channels. As a result, the Board confirms that the Company continues to trade in line with market expectations* for the current financial year.

* The Board believes that consensus market expectations for the year ending 31 March 2023 are revenues of £42.8m and PBT of £2.0m.

Ali Hall and Julie Lavington, Co-CEOs commented:

“We are pleased to be reporting another record trading performance for Sosandar and a fifth consecutive quarter of profitability for the Group. The momentum built in H1 has continued and we are thrilled to report both strong revenue  growth and improved margins compared with the first half of the financial year.  As a result of our strategic initiatives, we had a record number of visits in to Sosandar.com in the quarter and we have seen our customers investing in higher value items throughout the winter season.

Our agile business model, expanded product offering and ever-increasing brand awareness has allowed us to deliver what our customers want and to continue dressing women to feel sexy and chic.

Whilst the macro-economic environment remains challenging, and we remain highly vigilant, we continue to demonstrate that our differentiated model is capable of achieving sustained profitable growth. As a management team, we have complete confidence in our brand, unique product, amazing colleagues and our ability to continue executing on our strategy.

The strength of our brand and product range continues to be recognised by third party retailers and as a result we are really excited by a number of new opportunities for growth being presented to us across various sales channels and territories.”

Enquiries

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of the retained UK version of the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 (“UK MAR”).

About Sosandar plc

Sosandar is one of the fastest growing women’s fashion brands in the UK targeting style conscious women who have graduated from price-led alternatives. The Company offers this underserved audience fashion-forward, affordable, quality clothing to make them feel sexy, feminine, and chic. The business sells predominantly own-label exclusive product designed in-house.

Sosandar’s product range is diverse, providing its customers with an array of choice for all occasions across all women’s fashion categories. The company sells through Sosandar.com and has brand partnerships in place with Next, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, The Very Group and N Brown.

Sosandar’s strategy is to continue growing brand awareness and expand its customer database, whilst also further driving its high levels of customer retention. This is achieved through its exceptional products, seamless customer experience and impactful, lifestyle marketing activities all of which is underpinned by combining innovation with data analysis.

Sosandar was founded in 2016 and listed on AIM in 2017. More information is available at www.sosandar-ir.com