According to Mighty Ape’s financial statements, the business has managed to reduce its inventory levels by 25.6% over the year, down from $30.1m to $22.4m.
Mighty Ape managing director Robert McEwan believes the company has got past its issues as it looks towards the holiday season. Photo / Dean Purcell
During Kogan’s annual shareholder meeting in November, founder and chief executive Ruslan Kogan said the right sizing of Mighty Ape’s inventory was complete, and that the company was going into the peak sales period with the latest range of products.
Within Kogan’s annual report, website stability issues are also listed as “mostly resolved”, with minor bugs continuing to be addressed.
Although, contradicting Kogan’s comments, the report notes that inventory levels are still being worked on and will impact gross margins in the first half of the 2026 financial year.
The parent company gave a first-quarter update for Mighty Ape’s 2026 financial year from July to October, with the business reporting revenue down 30.2% to A$30.6m.
Gross margin percentage was also lower, down 3.2 percentage points to 25%. That compares to Kogan’s wider group gross margin of 40.4%.
Mighty Ape’s adjusted earnings before interest and tax reported the largest decline, with the business reporting a A$4m loss for the first quarter, down a massive 522.1%.
In November, Mighty Ape managing director Robert McEwan was confident the company had got past those issues, but acknowledged that it’s been a tough year financially.
“We’ve put a lot of money into our warehousing systems and capability to make sure we can deliver faster with really good service and accuracy. That investment in range has also been really phenomenal,” McEwan said.
“I do confidently think we will be in a much better position through this holiday period in FY2026 than we have been in FY2025.”
McEwan said the business had invested six figures into its operation, acknowledging the investment and support from parent company Kogan.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
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