Ocado Retail said it would return to positive EBITDA in its full year after a bumper Christmas.
Sales jumped 10.9% in its fourth quarter to 26 November at the joint venture between the online supermarket and M&S.
The retailer was boosted by its “highest ever level of sales” over Christmas and said it had sold more than 90% of peak delivery slots by mid-October.
For the full year, revenue was up 7% to £2.3bn and average orders were up 6.3% to 407.
While the business saw its average basket value rise 2.7%, basket size fell by 4.5% year on year to 44 items per order, “driven by the unwinding of pandemic shopping behaviours and the cost-of-living crisis”.
Boss Hannah Gibson said: “We are starting the new year with over one million active customers.
“Over the next 12-18 months, we will be embedding the foundations we have laid this year and raising the bar again for online grocery shopping. We have a really strong platform to build on in 2024.”
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For the new 2023/24 year, the group forecasts sales growth in the “mid-high single digits”.
Gibson added: “We made significant progress in 2023. We have focused first and foremost on being a great shopkeeper, improving our unbeatable range, great value and unrivalled experience – all underpinned by improved cost efficiencies.”
“Our Perfect Execution programme set a high bar for our performance, and we are pleased to have finished the year with strong momentum.”
In a bid to help shoppers amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, earlier this month Ocado launched price cuts on more than 1,700 products under its Big Price Drop, with an average reduction of 5% across the range.
This is the fifth round of price cuts for the online retailer since June 2023, taking the total number of products reduced to over 3,000.
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