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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Nils Pratley

Asos will not shed its reputation for being accident-prone easily

Smartphone showing an Asos app, a keyboard and a shopping trolley are in front of an Asos logo
Asos is worth just £430m with net debt of £320m. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

The share price chart tells the story: more than two decades after the birth of Asos, the pioneer of online fast fashion, we are still waiting to discover if a grownup, reliably profitable company will emerge.

Victory was glimpsed a few times, most recently during the Covid pandemic, when other people’s physical shops were closed and the online-only Asos produced an annual profit of almost £200m.

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