Ocado Reports its First Ever Annual Profit

03 Feb 2015 --- Online delivery company Ocado has reported it made more than £7m last year, aided by deals with Morrisons as well as Waitrose.

The company, which was founded 15 years ago, made a pre-tax profit of £7.2m in the year to end of November, following a £12.5m loss a year earlier. Revenue increased by 19.8% to £948.9m. 

The company has delivered groceries for Waitrose since it started up, and more recently it launched a separate partnership with Morrisons, helping the supermarket chain to offer an online service for the first time. 

The company said it has benefited from a change in consumer shopping habits, with more people choosing to drop the weekly shop in favour of shopping online. 

“Channel shift towards online grocery shopping continued during the period,” explained chief executive, Tim Steiner. “While the broader grocery market was characterised by intense competition with minimal growth in the segment, declining supermarket store sales, competitive price activity and cautious consumer spending. We continued to grow ahead of the online grocery market and significantly ahead of the market overall.”