British and American lockdown home-drinking boosts Naked Wines revenues

Naked Wines reported soaring revenues today as its UK boss said: "We've been operating like Christmas for six months."

The online-order company - which has a customer base that is 50% US, 35% UK, and 15% Australian - offers the chance to buy wines from independent producers at supermarket prices.  

It reported revenues up 80% to £157.1 million in the half year to September 28, and a strengthened cash position up £21.6 million to £76.3 million in the period.

The AIM-listed company said its warehouse capacity had increased by 104% worldwide, with customer service capacity up 80%, as it focused efforts on growing its consumer base as people drank at home in larger numbers due to the pandemic.

The company's fastest-growing area, it’s American business, helped Naked see subscriptions increase by 37% to 757,000.

Naked is now the largest direct to consumer wine merchant in the US, and company leaders are confident the business can continue to grow post-pandemic.

They upgraded their outlook for the year today, saying they expected to achieve sales growth of 55 to 65%.

Chief financial officer and UK boss, James Crawford, told the Standard: "We've seen changes in consumer behaviour that we now believe will be enduring.

"Between February and April in the US online wines sales grew from 5% to 20% of the market... A lot of people didn't even know you could buy wine online in the US before.

"We are an example of a UK company launching in the US and somewhat disrupting an industry and being successful."

The company, which calls customers ‘Angels’, saw founder Rowan Gormley leave last year to be replaced as chief executive by in-house successor Nick Devlin.

Devlin said: "Naked Wines is a bigger, better business than it was twelve months ago.  

“We have a business today that is not only larger, but structurally improved and ideally positioned to deliver sustained growth in the coming years.