Heerenveen, The Netherlands – Accell Group N.V. recorded a year-on-year sales growth of 53.1% in June, bringing H1 net sales to € 676.9 million, up 4.0% versus last year, despite the impact of the lockdowns in March and April.
H1 EBIT came in at € 45.1 million (excluding one-offs: € 47.5 million), trailing H1 2019 levels by 19.0% (excluding one-offs: 14.7%) with added value margin down 359 bps at 27.6%, mainly due to mix effects and higher costs caused by COVID-19 related disruptions in the global supply chain.
Ton Anbeek, CEO Accell Group: “The strong demand for bikes and P&A across Europe continues. With all countries and shops fully reopened in May and June we have been able to offset the decline of March and April leading to increased net sales in H1. In response to the virus outbreak our focus has been to manage for cash, reduce working capital and mitigate disruptions in the supply chain. While this led to some pressure on margins, we are pleased that the overall result of focusing on cost and cash in combination with a rebound in sales have led to a strong positive cash flow.
While dealing with the impact of the pandemic on our business, we have also continued our strategic journey with various improvements made in innovation planning and omnichannel. We have seen excellent progress capturing the online opportunity in bike parts & accessories, but also in bikes such as Raleigh in the UK. We managed to continue our strong growth in cargo bikes amongst others with the successful launch of the next generation Carqon e-cargo bike. Our ‘fit to compete’ program showed good progress as well with further complexity reductions, albeit we foresee the associated bottom-line savings not to come through this year due to the current disruptions in the global supply chain.
The pandemic has boosted interest from consumers and governments in cycling across Europe as an alternative means of healthy, safe and green mobility. We expect this to positively benefit our business on the mid to long term. For the short term, it remains uncertain which direction the pandemic will take. While our first priority remains the health of our people, we are working actively to enhance product availability in H2 and secure a strong supply base in early 2021 for a good start of the next bicycle season. We will do so while maintaining our focus on strict cost and cash control."
