Naked Wines hits £100 million annual sales for first time

By Mathew Lyons

Published: 22 March, 2016

Naked Wines, the online crowd-funding platform, has broken through the £100 million annual sales barrier for the first time, ahead of the company's financial year-end on March 28.

The company now has over 300,000 'angel' investors who support more than 100 independent winemakers in 14 countries.

In return for their investment, Naked Wines customers get exclusive access to unique deals, while the winemakers receive support and consumer feedback in addition to the much need capital to grow their businesses.

Naked Wines currently has divisions in the US and Australia in addition to its UK base.

It merged with Majestic Wine plc last April, with its chief executive Rowan Gormley taking the top job at the newly merged group.

The £100+ million annual sales target was in line with market expectations.

Gormley said: "Hitting this latest milestone proves once again that crowd-funded, social wine distribution can deliver brilliant outcomes for all our stakeholders at the same time - from those who pick the grapes to those who discover and drink our wines.

We'd like to thank our angels for being part of the Naked Wines' journey so far and supporting independent winemakers whilst discovering some fantastic wines.

We will continue to invest in Naked Wines and remain very excited about the opportunities ahead for the whole group."

News for the group as a whole has been more mixed since the merger however.

First half profits for the six months to September 28, 2015 showed profits slashed from £8.5 million to £4.3 million.

But a simplified trading model in the Majestic chain of wine stores - which saw the retailer abandon its flagship six-bottle-minimum sales policy - paid dividends in the second half of the year.

Sales in the retail business were up 7.3% year-on-year over the key Christmas trading period, with Naked Wines posting 28.9% growth over the same time.

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