AO World on track for full year despite weaker June

Online electrical goods retailer AO World said on Thursday that revenue grew 8% in the first quarter and that its expectations for the full year are unchanged.

In a brief trading statement for the period from 1 April to 30 June, the company said it was on track to deliver its long-term strategic plans.

The group said the rise in revenue during the quarter reflects a strong performance in April and May, but a slower performance in June, as its core markets were hit by weaker consumer demand.

"Our Europe business has performed in line with our plan during the period, with continuing strong year-on-year revenue growth of 46.2% in constant currency (up 48.8% on a reported basis), and we continue our strategy of limited traditional marketing as planned.

"We remain confident in the delivery of the plan we set out at our capital markets day in February 2017."

Whitman Howard analyst Tony Shiret said this update will probably be viewed with short-term caution as UK sales growth has slowed in June and the benefit from the World Cup comes into question.

"Europe looks good to us and that is where the upside from future scalability will emanate to drive re-rating if that happens," he added.

At 0918 BST, the shares were up 2.3% to 147.70p.