Asos has returned to profit after the cyber attack that rocked the fast-fashion seller last month, as its boss insisted the incident was “not a big thing”.

The London-listed retailer said its decision to pause some marketing and customer-related activity in the aftermath of the incident resulted in a “short-term disruption” to trading, estimated at between two and four per cent of the group’s gross merchandise value (GMV) in October.

The group typically generates £200m in GMV each month, valuing the impact of lost sales due to the incident at between £4m and £8m. Chief executive José Antonio Ramos said he is confident the group’s turnaround efforts have not been derailed by the attack.

He told reporters on Thursday: “We’re confident that this [impact] is going to dilute over time. So I don’t think that it is such a big thing, to be honest.”

Ramos has been leading turnaround efforts to reduce the retailer’s stock, simplify its supply chain and boost its margins since taking charge in June 2022.

Investors have been buoyed by the group’s use of artificial intelligence to get ahead of fashion trends, harking back to its original purpose as a destination for clothing inspired by celebrity looks.

Asos swung back into the black in the year to the end of August, posting a £24.4m pre-tax profit, compared to last year’s £282m loss. The group’s £46.4m adjusted loss before tax was better than the £61m forecast by analysts, and revenue dipped nine per cent to £2.2bn in line with market expectations.

Ramos said the fast-fashion seller has made “strategic pivot towards growth, building on the progress made through our transformation to date”.

The chief executive pointed to the group’s eight per cent GMV growth in womenswear in the second half of the year, though he said the firm’s menswear category “is still in recovery”. 

Asos ‘confident’ of better cyber defences

Ramos said Asos will ramp up its use of AI with a new ‘Stylist’ tool. “Imagine a store that is different for every customer, every time they visit, built around their own wardrobe and style, and shared with the friends, stylists and creators they love,” he said.

Last month, Asos’s share price dropped 12 per cent after a previously unknown group claimed they had hacked into the firm’s systems and gained access to personal details of its customers.

The hackers obtained an employee’s login information by posing as a trusted contact, the company later said, though it assured shoppers that their payment details had not been accessed.

Asos told shareholders on Thursday that its sales have not been affected in the long-term by the incident, with growth broadly flat in recent weeks despite the disruption caused by the attack. 

Ramos said: “We are confident that we are in a significantly better position now to avoid that this happens again. Obviously it’s impossible to say what is going to happen in the future, but we are confident that we have taken the right measures, in our collaboration with cyber experts.”