Ocado reached a new sales record for the Christmas quarter

The British online grocery pure player saw a sixth consecutive quarter of growth. For the last quarter of 2023, the growth accelerated to a robust +10,9%. This was faster growth than the two grocery giants, Tesco (+7,5%) and Sainsbury’s (+9,3%), that reported their Christmas revenues last week.

Ocado's strong growth momentum is illustrated when comparing the last twelve month (LTM) revenues to the pandemic peak of Q2/2021. During the height of the pandemic, Ocado had LTM revenues of £2373 million. The revenues for 2023 were £2358 million.

The Christmas trading period reached an all-time high of £609 million. That is 7% higher than the previous record Christmas of 2020 with revenues of £570 million.

Ocado’s growth was driven by inflation. However, the company was also able to grow volumes. Order volumes in items grew by +4,8%, whereas average weekly orders grew by +6,3%. All of the primary indicators for Ocado were growing in the last quarter. Only the average basket size declined slightly in terms of items.

As the CEO of Ocado Retail emphasised, Ocado is in a great position to start the new year. The company has a million active customers and has improved the efficiency and preciseness of its operations (99% of the items were delivered as promised).