3Q19 Trading Update Ocado reported a trading update for 3Q19, ended September 1. These are the highlights:

• Ocado grew retail revenue 11.4% year over year to £386.3 million. Retail revenue includes revenue from Ocado.com, Fetch and Ocado Zoom.
• The company’s average orders per week (from Ocado.com and Fetch) were strong at 314,000, up 12.1% year over year, but the average order size was down 0.8% year over year to £105.4.
• The company said that the Ocado and M&S online joint venture (JV) will offer greater choice, value and service for UK consumers. The JV will also create important new opportunities for its suppliers and other stakeholders.
• Ocado plans to introduce the full food range of M&S online by September 2020.
• The company completed the 50:50 JV with M&S in August 2019.

Melanie Smith, Ocado Retail’s CEO, said:

These first set of results from the joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S show the resilience of Ocado following the Andover fire and the momentum the business now has. As we continue to enhance our offering and add more capacity in the UK, our leading partnership will deliver the very best experience to an ever-growing number of customers.

Outlook In its 1H19 results, Ocado guided for a £15 million negative impact on group EBITDA, largely due to higher fixed costs as a result of Morrisons’ “holiday” on capacity at the customer fulfillment center in Erith, retail sales disruption due to the Andover fire and reduced fees in its Solutions segment. The company also guided for a £10 million negative impact on EBITDA due to share schemes. In its 1H19 results, Ocado maintained retail revenue growth guidance in the range of 10-15% for the balance of FY19 and capital expenditure of £350 million. In FY19, according to the consensus estimates recorded by StreetAccount, analysts expect Ocado to report revenues of £1.79 billion, up 11.9% year over year, and a loss per share of £0.14