Small-screen sales are raking in big dollars for retailer QVC, part of Liberty Interactive Corp. Sales from mobile devices totaled $423.81 million in Q1 up 42.5% from $297.37 million a year earlier. Mobile accounted for 52.13% of e-commerce sales of $813 million in the first quarter versus 38.47% of e-commerce sales of $773 million a year earlier. E-commerce sales increased 5.2% and the web now accounts for 42% of total sales, compared with 39% a year earlier.
“The expansion in mobile orders was exceptional,” says Greg Maffei, Liberty Interactive president and CEO.
Still the retailer’s mobile might wasn’t enough to offset an overall revenue decline as total sales dropped 2.4% to $1.938 billion compared with $1.986 billion a year earlier. The company blamed the strong dollar from bringing down the dollar-denominated sales from abroad. Excluding currency fluctuations, revenue would have increased 2%. U.S. sales grew nearly 3%. However, international sales declined $81 million, or 12%, bringing the company’s overall revenue into negative territory.
Liberty Interactive in October split QVC and its stake in HSN Inc. from its other e-commerce companies, which include Backcountry.com, Bodybuilding.com, and drop-ship and fulfillment vendor CommerceHub. QVC operates under the QVC Group, and the rest of the company’s e-commerce companies operate as the Liberty Ventures Group.
Among the Liberty Ventures Group units, Backcountry.com grew sales $10 million year over year, Bodybuilding.com’s sales increased $10 million and CommerceHub grew by $6 million. Liberty Interactive did not provide details on the sales of each company in the group. Overall, the Liberty Ventures Group grew Q1 sales 10.4% to $276 million from $250 million in Q1 2014.
For the first quarter QVC, No. 15 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide also reports:
- U.S. e-commerce revenue increased 7.12% to $632 million from $590 million a year
- Total U.S. revenue grew 2.8% to $1.342 billion compared with $1.305 billion a year earlier. Online sales accounted for 47.1% of U.S. sales compared with 45.2% a year earlier.
- QVC U.S. mobile revenue accounted 52.19% of QVC.com revenue, or $329.8 million compared with 36.53% a year earlier, or $215.53 million.
- QVC plans to launch in France this summer.
- QVC total sales in Germany fell to $212 million from $250 million a year earlier—a drop of 15.2%
- QVC total sales in Japan fell $199 million from $234 million a year earlier—a drop of 15.0%
- QVC total sales in the U.K. fell to $156 million from $165 million a year earlier—a drop of 5.5%.
- QVC total sales in Italy fell to $29 million from $32 million a year earlier—a drop of 9.38%.
Total international sales at QVC fell 12% to $596 million in the first quarter from $677.27 a year earlier.
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