By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – UK chocolatier Hotel Chocolat (LON:HOTC) lifted its full year forecast after reporting a strong Easter and Mother’s Day period in early spring.
Despite physical stores being closed in England for six of the eight weeks in the period to 25th April, revenue was up 60% over the same period last year, during which physical retail locations were closed for 5 weeks.
Group revenue for the eight-week period was also 19% higher than the comparative eight-week period in 2019, the most recent comparable period when all physical retail locations in England were open.
“In the past year, we have added over one million customers to our database, an increase of 47 percent. Our strong Easter is entirely thanks to them,” said Hotel Chocolat CEO Angus Thirlwell. “It feels great to have our physical locations back open again and we have a strong pipeline of exciting new products to launch over the summer.”
Lockdown exit
The AIM-listed company said sales across all the company’s channels have been “encouraging” since the reopening of non-essential retail stores as the UK begins its slow exit from lockdown.
With strong performance over Easter and since stores have reopened, the company said they now expect trading for the full year ending 27th June 2021 to be “significantly ahead of expectations”.
The upgraded expectations makes it clear that the company has managed to adjust to the challenges caused by coronavirus, according to AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
“It demonstrates that the company has done a good job of adjusting to the realities of the pandemic by shifting more of its sales through its website and third parties when its stores were unable to operate,” Mould said.
“The recent exit of rival Thorntons from the high street may also prove helpful to Hotel Chocolat as the easing of restrictions continues, allowing it gobble up market share.”
At 10:12BST, shares in Hotel Chocolat were trading 8.5% higher at 379.9 pence per share.