Moonpig swings to loss despite revenue uplift
Moonpig Group has seen its first half revenue increase by 3.8% to £158 million following 10% growth at the Moonpig brand.
Despite, the uplift, the group reported a pre-tax loss of £33 million in the six months to 31 October compared to a profit of £18.9 million a year earlier as its experiences segment continued to face a challenging market environment.
Meanwhile, adjusted pre-tax profit rose by 9% to £27.3 million as the group benefited from growth in trading and lower interest costs.
Moonpig Group said current trading remains in line with expectations as its continues to target double digit percentage annual revenue growth in the medium term. In addition, it has increased its medium-term target for adjusted EBITDA margin from a range of 25% to 26% to 25% to 27%.
Nickyl Raithatha, chief executive of Moonpig Group, said: “We are pleased to report continued growth in revenue for the group, driven by double-digit revenue growth at the Moonpig brand.
“Moonpig’s performance has been underpinned by robust growth in order volumes, powered by our multi-year investments in technology and innovation and the structural market shift to online.
“Raising our medium-term profit margin target demonstrates our confidence in the outlook for the business.”
During the period, Moonpig made more use of AI by incorporating AI generated product descriptions to improve search functionality for more relevant card and gift results. It also launched live inference technology, which analyses customer message sentiment to enhance our gift recommendations.
This month, it has introduced AI handwriting to enable customers to add their own handwriting for use as a font.
Raithatha said: “By creating their handwriting as a font saved to their Moonpig account, customers can type a message and see their handwriting seamlessly appear within the card. This launch is a key step in our roadmap of innovative features, leveraging emerging AI technologies to enhance the card-giving experience.”
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