Dr Martens achieves yearly milestone of ￡1 billion in revenue
Revenue for the year was up by 10% over the 2022 financial year result. EBITDA for the year was down by 7% to £245,000 (US$304,511) while profit after tax came in at £128,900 (US$160,210), down by 29%.
The direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel achieved growth of 16% in the year, with retail up by 30% and e-commerce increasing by 6%. Meanwhile, wholesale was up by 4%.
Dr Martens noted a strong performance in the EMEA region with a softer performance in North America. Meanwhile, in APAC, strong DTC growth in Japan was offset by Covid-19 restriction impacts in China.
The company said that operational issues have highlighted the importance of infrastructure investment and so it expects a drop in EBITDA for the 2024 financial year of 1-2 percentage points.
CEO Kenny Wilson said: “Reaching this milestone is testament to the strength of our brand, our long-standing DOCS strategy and the hard work and dedication of our fantastic people globally. Direct to consumer is now more than half our revenue and the Dr Martens brand remains strong with all key metrics either ahead of, or in line with, last year. In EMEA and Japan, where we executed our strategy well, performance was very good with encouraging momentum going into the new financial year.
“In America, against the backdrop of a challenging consumer environment, we made operational mistakes, such as the move to our LA Distribution Centre, and how we executed our marketing campaigns and ecommerce trading. We have undertaken detailed reviews to understand why these issues occurred and have begun to embed the lessons learned into the business. We are fixing the issues in America, including a significant strengthening of the team there, and returning America to good growth is our number one operational priority.”