THG’s founder Matt Moulding has said he’s ‘super proud’ of the eCommerce giant’s performance in 2023 after a ‘brutal’ two years.
THG is a global leader in beauty, nutrition and technology and reported revenues of £1,983.7m – down 2.8 per cent on 2022 as the company prioritised profitable sales.
Over the same period the company’s losses narrowed to £252m, down from £549.7m.
The group delivered record EBITDA and a return to revenue growth in Q4.
THG Beauty, which is a key partner for over 1,300 beauty brands through its retail sites including Lookfantastic, Cult Beauty and Dermstore, generated revenue of £1.2bn in 2023.
Matt Moulding in THG boardroom on today’s call to the City
Moulding said the ‘momentum’ had continued into 2024 but, in his LinkedIn blog, wrote how difficult the last two years had been.
“2023 was a record profit performance for THG, better than the Covid highs,” he wrote. “But this in no way tells the story. It’s been brutal running THG these past two years.
“Any consumer-facing business knows exactly how lively it’s been since the start of 2022 – carnage.
“At THG, it’s felt like a F1 race, but on a track covered with thick fog, torrential rain, crashes, potholes, and cheating track marshals!
“Inflation exploded in early 2022 and, like everyone, THG was facing dramatic cost increases. Central banks also wanted to slow consumer spending, raising interest rates at record speed. Not a dream scenario.”
He said THG undertook a company-wide review, reducing its workforce from a high of 10,000 to 7,000.
“Adding more people to a business isn’t always a measure of progress,” he said. “In the new world of AI and higher costs, less is more.
“We’ve been lucky – our huge tech and automation investments completed just as inflation exploded, bringing the savings when we really needed them – better to be lucky than good.”
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