Portmeirion hails record year
Portmeirion, the owner, designer, manufacturer and omnichannel retailer of leading homeware brands, saw its revenue increase by 5% to a record £110.8 million in the year to 31 December following an “excellent” Christmas trading period.
Furthermore, revenue was up 19% on pre-Covid levels three years earlier and headline pre-tax profit rose to £8 million from £7.2 million in the prior year.
Sales on the company’s online platforms continued to grow, despite physical retail stores reopening following Covid restrictions, and represented 51% of total sales in Portmeirion’s core UK and US markets at the end of the year.
During the period, the company improved productivity at its Stoke-on-Trent ceramic factory and witnessed encouraging growth in South Korea, Canada and China following a strategic focus on international markets. It also acquired the Aroma Works home fragrance brand.
Mike Raybould, Portmeirion chief executive, said: “We have benefited from our diversified, global sales geography with 75% of sales now outside of the UK. We saw strong sell through during our seasonal/Christmas trading with increased online penetration and successful new product extensions.
“Ongoing productivity improvements in our UK ceramic factory with the continued investment in automation, together with our long-term energy price hedge in place until Q1 FY24, helped us to mitigate higher input cost inflation and still grow operating margins.”
Portmeirion’s trading in the first few months of the new calendar year has been in line with expectations, although the company is remaining cautious due to ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.
Raybould added: “We continue to focus on delivering on our significant long-term growth and margin improvement opportunity. The macroeconomic uncertainty looks to continue however our global diversification, strong balance sheet and encouraging customer outlook means we are well positioned for the year ahead.”
