Plant-based beverage giant Oatly has recorded a 21.8% rise in second-quarter revenue, but cut its outlook for full-year sales.
For the quarter ended 30 June, the oat milk maker reported sales of $178 million, which included a foreign currency “headwind” of $11.7 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue grew 29.7% year-over-year.
Oatly has been ramping up production capacity during the past 12 months, with countries including China and the US seeing significant investments, and the company says that the revenue increase was primarily driven by additional supply from its facilities. Sold volume for Q2 amounted to 121 million litres, compared with 95 million litres last year, an increase of 27.4%.
Meanwhile, the company posted a six-month net loss of $159.4 million, compared with a $91.4 million loss in the year-ago period. EBITDA losses widened to $144 million from $68.2 million in the previous year.
Toni Petersson, Oatly’s CEO, said: “We delivered strong second-quarter financial results with sales growth of 22%, or 30% in constant currency, despite several headwinds including Covid-19 lockdowns in China. Profitability metrics improved compared to the first quarter of 2022 and we expect this trend to continue in the second half of the year.”
Oatly has updated its outlook for the full year “based on the challenging operating environment today with the war in Ukraine, Covid-19, and inflationary and supply chain pressures,” Petersson said.
He continued: “In EMEA [Europe, the Middle East and Africa], oat milk clearly continues to take market share and our leading brand position and velocity remain strong. However, we believe the macroeconomic uncertainty has impacted the speed at which we are able to expand our distribution footprint in foodservice and new markets, and the pace at which we have been able to convert new consumers from dairy to plant-based milk is taking longer than we had hoped for.”
Meanwhile, in Asia, where Covid-19-related restrictions and concerns over lockdowns persist, the recovery in the foodservice channel has been slower than the company expected.
Oatly says that it now expects full-year revenue growth in the region of 24% to 29%, compared with its previous forecast of 37-43% growth.
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