Angling Direct plc (LON:ANG) saw its shares rise today after the fishing equipment seller said its revenue for the full-year to 31 January 2018 was ahead of expectations, driven by significant growth across the company's retail and e-commerce division.
In a pre-close trading update, the AIM-listed firm said its revenue for the last financial year increased by around 44% to £30.2mln, up from £21.0mln in the previous year.
READ: Angling Direct to float on AIM next month
The group said continued investment in its e-commerce platform and operations resulted in around a 54% increase in direct sales year-on-year, backed by several recent months of over 1.0m visits to the company's website.
The company added that retail sales in-stores were up by around 40% year-on-year, and like-for-like sales in-stores were up by circa 10%.
Angling Direct said it is already attracting regular custom from outside of the UK and last year generated revenue from over 40 countries, with all sales coming through the website.
The company said it expects to invest more resources this year into growing overseas sales, and to support this it will be introducing country specific websites to drive the growth.
Angling Direct concluded that new store openings and sustained online growth offers the group a very positive outlook despite higher labour costs and increased margin pressure and it remains confident of continued strong growth this year and beyond.
In mid morning trading, Angling Direct shares were up 1% at 98p.
The company said it intends to issue its full year results on 14 May 2018.