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Kogan profit grew 164% during first half of FY21

It also added 1.3 million active customers over the past 12 months.
Written by Campbell Kwan, Contributor

Kogan's net profit after tax (NPAT) at the 2021 financial half year grew by 164% to AU$23.6 million when compared to its performance from last year.

It added that gross sales and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by more than 95% and 130%, respectively, to AU$638.2 million and AU$38.8 million during the period.  

For the half year, Kogan paid AU$11.5 million in Australian taxes.

The company attributed the growth to strong Christmas and Black Friday sales periods, touting that seven of the company's 10 biggest trading days ever occurred during those periods.

According to Kogan, its online website earned more AU$50 million in gross sales during Black Friday week alone by selling over 470,000 items. Meanwhile, Kogan marketplace saw over AU$10 million in gross sales during that same week.

As of the end of 1HFY21, Kogan also reported that it has around 3 million active customers. During this time last year, Kogan had 1.7 active million customers, Kogan CEO and founder Ruslan Kogan said.

He added that the number of repeat customers has been rapidly accelerating

The company also reported it had around AU$79 million in cash with AU$1.4 million debt facility drawn within Mighty Ape as of half-year's end. 

Mighty Ape, a Kiwi online retailer, was acquired by Kogan during the half-year period. In the business update, Kogan CEO and founder Ruslan Kogan touted that the acquisition added 719,000 new active customers to the group.

"We are investing into building strong customer relationships by expanding our logistics capability, our marketing reach, and our systems and infrastructure -- giving us the foundation to continue delighting customers as the business further scales," he said.

Last month, Kogan was slapped with a AU$310,800 fine following an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation, which found the online retailer breached Australian spam laws. 

The ACMA investigation uncovered that Kogan sent more than 42 million marketing emails to consumers between 13 December and 15 December 2019 from which they could not easily unsubscribe. Instead, customers were required to set up a password and login into their Kogan account to unsubscribe.

Under the Australian Spam Act, commercial electronic messages are required to contain a functional unsubscribe facility.

The spam fine came shortly after the Australian Federal Court ordered Kogan to pay a separate AU$350,000 fine for inflating the prices of its products and then promoting "discounts" on these products. 

This most recent court order marked the third time that Kogan has been caught inflating prices for its online retail sales.

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