Space NK’s results for the year to last March showed strong progress for both sales and profits at the high-end beauty specialist.

In a Companies House filing, the firm said turnover rose to £146.6 million from £119.1 million during the period (a 23% increase), which it attributed to a strong store like-for-like performance (up 28%). Newly opened and upsized stores helped the figure too, as did surging online sales, which jumped 16%.

The company said that EBITDA for the period reached £5.98 million, up from £2.29 million. Pre-tax profit was £2.27 million against a loss of £1 million last time, and net profit was £1.38 million after a loss in the previous financial period of almost £621,000.

The company’s directors explained that the decision the business had taken in the previous financial year to continue to invest in order to drive growth “is now paying a return”. It had invested in stores, operations, technology and customer acquisition and has continued to do so. The directors also said they’re “confident this will further increase the company’s resilience and result in strong long-term growth to both turnover and EBITDA”.

They pointed to the positive future outlook given the increasing evidence that customers post-Covid “want to shop in an omnichannel environment”, which Space NK sees as a key differentiator for it up against its competition.

The firm has been opening stores in the past year and debuted at north England supermall Liverpool One in June in a 1,850 sq ft space. CEO Andy Lightfoot called Liverpool One “a strategically important destination”, adding that the location “has long been one of our most requested”.

In an interview a few months later he also promised more openings to come.