Ocado has recorded pre-tax profit of £7.2m in the first half of the year, beating expectations. In a trading update this morning, the online grocer also confirmed the speculation that it was in “discussions with multiple potential international partners to adopt Ocado Smart Platform with target to sign first agreement in 2015”.
One of Ocado‘s existing partners, big four grocer Morrisons, has benefitted from a growth in sales after switching online retail businesses to Ocado’s platform.
Despite a price war in the UK’s supermarket space, Ocado enjoyed a 15.7% rise in gross sales to £511.9m in the 24 weeks ended 17 May 2015.
Chief Exec Tim Steiner said:
“The broader grocery market remaining characterised by intense price competition and deflationary pressures.
Against this backdrop, our relentless focus on customer satisfaction continues to drive customer members and like-for-like sales ahead of the online grocery market. The resilience of our business model and increasing operational leverage also mean that we have grown operating profit despite these industry headwinds.
Our continuous commitment to constant innovation in technology not only allows to give industry-leading service to our customers at home but to offer our end-to-end platform solution to retailers outside the UK.”
