musicMagpie shares strong half-year trading update

Stockport-headquartered circular economy pioneer, musicMagpie, has announced strong half-year trading for the six months to the end of May 2023.

Despite H1 traditionally being the quieter half of the year for the retailer, EBIDTA rose 7.7% on the same period last year, at £2.8 million. The strong performance for the business comes in spite of postal strikes and low consumer confidence taking their toll on December and January trading.

During the period, the Group focussed on cost control and increasing gross margins rather than growing revenues on lower margin products. Sales of consumer technology products reached £41.2 million, comprising two-thirds of revenue for musicMagpie. Sales of disc media and books continued to decline. A combination of a higher proportion of products sourced directly from consumers and an increase in the proportion of sales made through the musicMagpie store for such products have, however, helped to boost gross margins.

Subscriber numbers to the business’ technology rental service also continued to rise, with around 39,000 customers now paying a monthly fee for a refurbished device. H2 2023 will see the launch of an enhanced Buy Now Pay Later option which will benefit Consumer Technology sales and increase choice for consumers. It will sit alongside the Group’s evolving rental offer which will focus on more profitable, higher credit quality customers.  This will help support long term profit growth whilst managing working capital, and thus debt utilisation, more effectively.  

musicMagpie also announced in its trading update that it has extended its £30.0 million Revolving Credit Facility by one year to provide committed facilities through to July 2026.

Commenting on the business’ H1 2023 performance, Steve Oliver, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of musicMagpie, said:

“We are pleased with our performance in what is always the seasonally quieter half of the year for musicMagpie. It is especially gratifying to see that our profit improvement has been driven by an increased margin. This has been achieved both by focusing on higher margin sales through our own musicMagpie online store, as well as the continued strong growth of our rental offering. While we remain very mindful of the current tough consumer environment, the momentum in our business as we head into H2 means that we are confident of achieving our full year expectations.”