Asos defies weak retail climate as it looks towards global expansion

Asos, the UK’s largest online-only fashion and beauty retailer, has reported a 63% rise in total global revenues for the three months to June 30 (to £104m). In the same period, domestic sales were up a very respectable 15% (to £44.6m), proving that retailers can still succeed in this weak economic climate with the right output.

The retailer has undoubtedly benefited from the migration of spending from the high street to the Internet, and its social media experiment - which resulted in the opening of an Asos store on Facebook - has also paid dividends (in addition to becoming one of the network site’s most visited pages). Because ecommerce by its very nature is global, Asos has also been very well-received outside of the UK, prompting management to launch region-specific sites in new markets.

Nick Robertson, Chief Executive of Asos, comments: “The UK market remains challenging, which is why we are focusing all our efforts on international expansion.” Asos is reportedly being launched in Spain, Italy and Australia in the near future, which will extend the retailer’s online store tally to seven.