Sales increased to £551m from £427m in 2009, for the full year to 28 November, and the Christmas period proved robust, despite the severe weather and anecdotal reports of failed deliveries across all sectors.
Ocado reduced the number of delivery slots available to deal with the poor weather, and so drove up the number of successful deliveries to 98%.
, while a second when deliveries were hit. , according to official figures.
In the final 16 weeks of the year, gross sales increased 27.4% to £178.9m, and average orders per week rose by 28.0% to 99,741 from 77,914 in 2009.
The average order size decreased very slightly, from £112.67 last year to £112.12 in 2010.
Tim Steiner, chief executive of Ocado, said the strong Christmas performance "would not have been possible without the heroic efforts of our staff rising to the challenge of delivering a record number of orders in sometimes challenging conditions. Our plan for dealing with extreme weather conditions enabled us to make over 98% of deliveries in the affected period".
Gross sales rose 43.5% to £12.3m in Christmas week, and in the four-week run-up to Christmas, gross sales rose 26.7% to £50.9m.
in September. It claims to be "comparable to Waitrose" and the "majority" of its customers now opt for their products.
Last week , said although online delivery services are generally losing companies money, Morrisons is looking hard at launching its own delivery service.
Ocado did not release any information on profits or margins, but full-year figures will be available in February.
In June, half-year results revealed Ocado's operating loss had declined to £2.7m, while Ebitda – often used as a measure of underlying profitability – increased to £8m.
.jpg)
.jpg)