LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Sports nutrition company Science in Sport reported a 28% improvement in sales in its first half on Thursday to £8.27m, in a period the board said consisted of "strong" sales increases and "significant" progress in the execution of its growth strategy.
The AIM-traded firm said its e-commerce platform delivered growth of 78% across all markets in the six months to 30 June, while there was also growth in all retail channels, which it said was "particularly pleasing" given tough trading conditions.

Additionally, the company increased investment in its US and Italy businesses, and they were now trading in line with expectations, as was the Australian business.

"We have had a strong start to the year in a difficult market, and have made very good progress, particularly when many of our competitors continue to face growth challenges," said CEO Stephen Moon.

"We have invested heavily in international markets and increased our investment to capitalise on opportunities we are seeing."Science in Sport increased its database of customers on its own e-commerce platform by 38% in the half year, and said all related conversion and trading metrics were in line with expectations.

The science and innovation pipeline was said to be "healthy", and revenues were expected to accelerate in the second half of the year, with a WHEY20 relaunch in July and both a premium recovery product and a novel immunity product to be launched in August.

Costs were still tightly controlled, the board said, enabling the pace of investment into international markets and systems to increase in line with the growth strategy.

The company remained in a "strong" financial position with more than £3.9m of net cash, leaving it "well placed" to exploit further growth opportunities as they arose.

Science in Sport's board said it remained confident of the outlook for the full year and beyond.

"We continue to invest in all aspects of our e-commerce business and that is reflected in the high growth delivered," Stephen Moon added.

"We have good momentum and together with our healthy innovation pipeline, we expect to have a strong second half."

Science in Sport said it intended to issue its half year results on 21 September.

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