Lyst revenue growth speeds up, despite pandemic, but loss widens

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 15, 2021

Fashion search platform Lyst has filed its results for the 12 months to March 31 2020 and said that the year saw the group continuing its rapid expansion with a 26% increase in revenue to £23 million. This was an acceleration on the 20% growth in the previous year. And pre-pandemic, its rate was 49%.

The group operating loss widened however, reaching £11.79 million compared to £7.36 million in the previous year. The final loss for the year was £11.4 million, almost double the £6.25 million loss of a year earlier.

That all happened as the company invested in its operations and focused on improving its functionality via mobile web and app, as well as localising its product with six new international sites having launched. These helped international revenue growth to hit 160%.

And the company is fully focused on growing its app business, while expanding its international footprint further, as well as strengthening its data capabilities. It said that these initiatives should help to continue driving revenue higher in the year ahead, despite the pandemic impact.

Not that the future is free of hurdles. The company said the speed of recovery for the global economy creates plenty of uncertainty and a slow recovery is a risk for it, even though it's currently trading at levels scene pre-Covid. The exchange rate between the US dollar and British pound is also a risk to its finances, particularly as that rate has been volatile recently. 

However, the business appears to have enough cash available to it to get through any prolonged downturn.