Oatly hailed “progress on [its] three strategic pillars” during its first quarter 2024 earnings call this morning, casting a positive tone on a report that highlighted volume growth, margin gains and cost cuts.
CEO Jean-Christophe Flatin called the results “encouraging”; in North America, volume growth (+11.4%) helped drive revenue up 4.6% (+$2.9 million), more than half of which is coming from retail. Across the entire business, revenue improved +1.8% year-over-year to $199.2 million (+1.2% on constant currency basis).
Supply chain efficiencies are driving real margin gains, Oatly reported: Gross profit margin was 27.1% (+9.7% YoY) in Q1, with gross profit up to $53.9 million ($34.1 million in Q1 2023).
In North America specifically, gross profit gains helped contribute to improving Adjusted EBIDA from $10.3 million last year to around $400,000 in Q1 2024. The results build on the “significant” profit improvements via margin and mixed costs savings in the prior quarter.
The oat milk company – which brought a fully operational oat milk fountain to its Milan Design Week installation earlier this month – has trimmed costs around R&D (-$1.1 million) and selling, general and administrative expenses, coming mainly from a $12.7 million cut in employee-related expenses.
Net losses ($45.8 million) continued to weigh down the company in Q1, though they represent a $29.8 million improvement from the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $13.2 million, compared to $36.7 million in Q1 2023.
In a prepared statement, Flatin called it “a solid start to the year.”
“In the first quarter, our brand remained strong, our volumes moved in the right direction, our costs structurally came down while also benefiting from timing, and our business became stronger,” he said. “We are clearly making progress on the three strategic pillars we are focusing on in 2024: bring the Oatly magic to more people, continue our work on the calibration of resources, and focus on execution.”
The company’s full year guidance of 5-10% constant currency revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of $35 million to $60 million remains unchanged.
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