Moonpig hikes revenue forecast after strong Mother’s Day

Online card retailer Moonpig has said a successful Mother’s Day and positive post-lockdown trends have helped drive a “strong” trading performance for the current financial year.

The company upgraded its revenue expectations for the year to April 30 to about £300 million.

Moonpig had previously predicted revenues of about £285 million for the year.

It said trading was better than previously forecast on the back of “temporary” changes in customer behaviour in late December and January, amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

Nickyl Raithatha, chief executive of Moonpig, said: “Today’s update reflects continued strong trading performance post-lockdowns, including a very successful UK Mothers’ Day, and we remain confident in the outlook for the year ahead.

“Moonpig Group has delivered a permanent step change in scale over the past two years, with a larger customer base displaying higher loyalty than pre-pandemic.

“The long-term opportunity remains vast, and we have never been in a better position to deliver against Moonpig Group’s strategy to become the ultimate gifting companion.”

The company said it is investing in its technology platform and operations networks to increase its sales capacity in order to help further growth.

Andrew Wade, analyst at Jefferies, said the announcement was “as robust an update as we could have hoped for”.

He added: “Reassuringly, management has continued to see little impact from price inflation nor any headwinds in gifting demand.”

Shares in the company increased by 2% to 241.5p in early trading.