British online retailer Boohoo has reported that its statutory pre-tax loss widened by 69.2% to £159.9m ($199.7m) in the fiscal year 2024 (FY24), from the previous year's loss of £90.7m.   

The company's diluted loss per share also increased from 6.13p in FY23 to £11.48p in FY24. 

The online fashion retailer's gross merchandise value for the fiscal year was £1.80bn, a 13% decrease from £2.08bn in FY23.  

For the 12 months ended 29 February 2024, Boohoo recorded revenue of £1.46bn, down by 17% from £1.76bn a year previously. 

The retailer attributed the decline to its increased focus on profitability and the impact of challenging market conditions.  

Boohoo's gross profit also declined by 16% to £756.1m in FY24, while its gross margin improved slightly by 120 basis points (bps) to 51.8%, from 50.6% in FY23.  

The company's operating costs fell 16% to £699m, driven by cost-saving measures. 

Boohoo's adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) for the fiscal year was £58.6m, a decline of 7% from £63.3min FY23. 

Its adjusted EBITDA margin saw an improvement to 4.0%, a 40bps increase from FY23, which the company attributes to improvements in gross margin, cost reduction initiatives and value unlocked from automation investments.  

The company's net debt increased by £100.9m to £95.0m, influenced by investments in US inventory and capital expenditure.  

Boohoo Group CEO John Lyttle said: “Despite difficult market conditions, caused by high levels of inflation and weakened consumer demand, we made continued progress in the year.  

“I am particularly encouraged with the ongoing trend of improved performance in our core brands which saw GMV down 9% in H1 [the first half[ of FY24 and down just 4% in H224, demonstrating increasing momentum and validating our strategy to focus on these brands which are much loved by our customer base. 

“The group is now well positioned to return to growth, and we are focused on ensuring that growth is both sustainable and profitable. We will host a capital markets day in due course to provide more detail on our strategy, key growth drivers and the longer-term outlook for the group." 

In April 2024 Boohoo expanded its use of search and merchandising tools provided by the cloud-based e-commerce experience platform Bloomreach.