Following today’s release of ASOS’s figures for the six months ending 1 March 2026; Sharon Iles, senior apparel analyst at GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform, offers her view: “ASOS continued to struggle in H1 FY2025/26, with revenue falling a further 8.4% to £1.2bn, as the business remained weighed down by dampened consumer sentiment and a tough economic background. It also continued to face intense competition from agile, low-cost rivals such as Shein and Temu, with their relentless pricing and speed-to-market advantage harming ASOS’s relevance with Gen Z audiences. ASOS remained loss-making at the operating level, recording an operating loss of £100.9m. That said, ASOS profitability has majorly improved, with adjusted EBITDA increasing 51% to £64.0m, driven by sustained cost discipline across its supply chain. For the full year, ASOS has maintained its guidance, targeting adjusted EBITDA of £150m-£180m, with its GMV trajectory expected to continue improving through H2, signalling growing confidence that its structural improvements are beginning to gain traction.
“The UK remained ASOS’s biggest market, with revenue falling 12.4%, as economic pressures and ongoing consumer caution continued to weigh on demand, though high brand awareness among its core customer base provided a degree of insulation against sharper declines seen elsewhere. Europe was more challenged, with revenue declining 13.7% as weaker traffic and lower conversion persisted across the region, reflecting intensifying competition from established local players such as Zalando and About You. However, tentative signs of improvements emerged in Germany and France, where new customer growth returned in Q2. The US declined 18.4%, primarily due to a lack of brand awareness and insufficient assortment relevance in the region. The introduction of IEEPA tariffs also weighed on performance due to fulfilment disruption. Rest of World was the weakest performing region, with revenue falling 20.4%, reflecting its low brand awareness in the region, as well as the presence of stronger locally rooted competitors offering more culturally relevant product, leaving ASOS struggling to justify its proposition against alternatives that better serve local consumer needs.
“ASOS is pursuing various initiatives to improve its future performance. It continued the scaling of its Test & React model, growing c.6ppts on the year, enabling the business to bring products from design to site in as little as three weeks, making its assortment more trend-led and agile. Exclusive collaborations are also sharpening its differentiation, with the ASOS x Adidas collaboration among the retailer’s most in-demand launches of the period, driving a 40% uplift in adjacent Adidas products. On the technology front, ASOS has undertaken a comprehensive reinvention of its app built around deeper personalisation and AI-driven styling, with early results demonstrating improved conversion rates, as part of a broader push to close the gap with algorithm-driven rivals such as Shein and TikTok Shop. However, ASOS still needs to strengthen consumers’ perception of the quality of its own-brand products and tackle the backlash against its strict returns policies, if its ambitions are to return to its former glory.”
