Luxury platform Farfetch achieved a turnover of more than a billion dollars in 2019, for the first time in its history. On the other side, its losses have increased considerably.
Turnover continues to rise sharply
Farfetch achieved a turnover of 1.02 billion dollars (930 million euros) last year, an increase of 69% compared to 2018. The Gross Merchandise Volume increased from 1.41 billion to 2.14 billion dollars (1.9 billion euros). The adjusted EBITDA lowered further, from – 95.7 million dollars to – 121.4 million dollars (- 110 million euros). In relative terms, turnover (+ 69.5 %) rose much more than the operating loss (+ 26.8 %).
Both evolutions were even stronger in the fourth quarter of 2019: turnover doubled to 382 million dollars (340 million euros), but the loss after tax increased more than tenfold from 9.9 million dollars to 110 million dollars (100 million euros). The GMV increased by 60 % to 740 million dollars (670 million euros).
In 2020, Farfetch wants to increase the GMV by 40 to 45 % to at least three billion dollars (2.7 billion euros). The company expects the adjusted EBITDA to fall to 70 to 80 million dollars (65 to 70 million euros). As usual, the press release contained a coronavirus warning: CEO José Neves says that he is pleased that “there has not been a material impact to the business” and that “the Farfetch model [is] particularly resilient to the situation”. Yet Neves also has to admit that the future would look “uncertain” if the crisis spread much further.
