Online powerhouse Boohoo in fashion with surging sales

Boohoo has posted soaring sales in the first quarter as it pushed ahead with its ambitious expansion plans.

Group sales at the online fashion retailer - which comprises Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing, and Nasty Gal - jumped 53% to £183.6 million in the three months to May 31.

Sales in the UK jumped 49%, up from £74.6 million to £110.7 million, while its sales in the US were up 75% to £31.4 million.

The Boohoo brand brought in £97.2 million, while Pretty Little Thing and Nasty Gal delivered £79.2 million and £7.2 million respectively in the first quarter of the financial year.

Despite the strong sales growth, Boohoo's shares fell by 4.1% in early trading to 211p.

The group said it would grow full-year revenue by between 35% and 40%, with underlying earnings expected to rise by up to 10%.

Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, joint chief executives of Boohoo, said: "Our infrastructure continues to see record levels of investment as we invest ahead of our growth curve and develop a distribution network capable of supporting £3 billion of net sales globally."

They said the company's extension and automation of its Burnley distribution centre would be finished by the end of the financial year, and that Pretty Little Thing would move into its own warehouse in the second half of the year.

The figures from Boohoo stood in stark contrast to the full-year update from New Look, also published on Tuesday.

New Look announced that it had swung to a loss for the year, and that it had suffered a double-digit slump in both its retail and online sales.