Zalando reports strong 2025 results and announces €300 million share buyback

The Zalando results in 2025 highlight a year of strong financial performance and strategic progress for Europe’s leading technology platform for fashion and lifestyle. The company reported double-digit growth across key financial metrics and announced a share buy-back programme of up to €300 million, reflecting confidence in its long-term growth strategy.

According to the company’s report, group revenue increased by 16.8% to €12.3 billion, while adjusted EBIT rose by 15.6% to €591 million. The strong performance was supported by continued execution of Zalando’s B2C and B2B strategies and the integration of ABOUT YOU following its acquisition.

Zalando also expects further acceleration in 2026, driven largely by the scaling of artificial intelligence across its platform and operations.

Financial performance exceeds expectations

The Zalando results in 2025 show that the company delivered performance at the high end of its guidance, which had been updated following the acquisition of ABOUT YOU.

Group gross merchandise volume (GMV) increased by 14.7% to €17.6 billion, while revenue climbed to €12.3 billion. At the same time, adjusted EBIT reached €591 million, maintaining a stable 4.8% EBIT margin at the group level.

Zalando’s stand-alone business delivered even stronger profitability improvements, with its adjusted EBIT margin expanding to 5.3%.

Robert Gentz, Co-CEO of Zalando, emphasized that the company’s strategy and long-term investments in technology infrastructure played a central role in achieving these results.

He noted that Zalando’s data and infrastructure platform, built over 17 years, gives the company a significant competitive advantage. The platform combines extensive customer data, strong brand partnerships, and one of Europe’s leading logistics fulfilment networks.

Artificial intelligence drives efficiency and innovation

Artificial intelligence played a central role in the Zalando results in 2025, helping the company improve operational efficiency and customer experiences.

In marketing, Zalando significantly expanded its use of AI-generated product content. Within a year, the company scaled AI-generated content from almost zero to 90%, reducing campaign creation times from six weeks to just a few days and increasing content output by 70%.

AI also helped improve logistics operations. Advanced supply chain models increased the precision of real-time delivery promises by 22 percentage points, enabling more reliable delivery predictions for customers.

The company also introduced AI coding tools for its 3,000 technology specialists, leading to more than 20% growth in code changes, which helped accelerate product development in complex technical environments.

AI-powered shopping experiences

Zalando plans to further scale AI innovations in 2026, building on the momentum reflected in the Zalando 2025 results.

One major focus is personal matchmaking, which connects customers with products, content, and sizes that best match their preferences. Zalando reports that its AI-powered models have already driven a 13% increase in items added to shopping bags.

The company’s Size & Fit AI, trained on real body measurements from over one million customers, also helps reduce returns by enabling shoppers to select the correct size more accurately. According to Zalando, this technology has helped reduce size-related returns by more than 8%.

Zalando is also evolving its Zalando Assistant into a conversational shopping tool and lifestyle companion. Engagement has increased significantly, reaching six million users, which represents a fourfold increase compared with the previous year.

To further develop AI-powered shopping experiences, Zalando has partnered with Qutwo, a European artificial intelligence laboratory focused on lifestyle agents.

Pioneering agentic commerce

Another key innovation highlighted in the Zalando 2025 results is the company’s early investment in agentic commerce, an emerging e-commerce channel that could account for up to 15% of all online retail by 2030.

Zalando is one of only two European launch partners for Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, enabling customers to discover and purchase fashion products directly through AI chatbots such as Gemini.

Because Zalando is already the number one referred fashion platform by conversational AI systems, this integration could provide access to entirely new customer groups in the future.

B2C growth driven by multi-app strategy

In the consumer segment, the Zalando results 2025 show strong growth driven by the company’s multi-app strategy.

Zalando now operates three major apps:

• the Zalando flagship app, focused on brands,
• the ABOUT YOU app, centered on trends,
• Lounge by Zalando, focused on deals and promotions.

Together, these apps helped increase the company’s active customer base to a record 62 million users in 2025.

Customer engagement also improved significantly. Zalando’s Plus loyalty programme expanded to 17 markets and reached 16.8 million members, generating nearly half of the company’s GMV in the fourth quarter.

The company’s AI-powered discovery feed also gained traction, attracting over nine million weekly users and helping shift Zalando from a transactional shopping platform to a daily lifestyle destination.

B2B business continues to expand

Zalando’s B2B platform business also delivered strong growth as part of the Zalando 2025 results.

B2B revenue increased 14.6% to €1.1 billion, while adjusted EBIT more than doubled year over year.

Zalando’s modular operating system for fashion e-commerce now includes:

• ZEOS for logistics services,
• SCAYLE for shop and marketplace software,
• Tradebyte for marketplace integration.

Together, these solutions support more than 1,200 merchants and enable approximately €11 billion in GMV.

A major milestone was SCAYLE’s partnership with Levi’s®, which selected the platform to power its global direct-to-consumer business across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

€300 million share buyback programme

Following the strong Zalando 2025 results, the company announced a share buy-back programme of up to €300 million.

The programme corresponds to approximately 5% of shares outstanding and will be financed through Zalando’s strong cash flow position. The company plans to cancel the repurchased shares.

According to CFO Anna Dimitrova, the decision reflects Zalando’s confidence in its future performance and its commitment to disciplined capital allocation.

At the same time, the company will continue investing heavily in growth, planning capital expenditure of €240 million to €300 million in its technology platform and infrastructure.

Outlook for 2026

Looking ahead, Zalando expects the momentum from the Zalando 2025 results to continue into 2026.

The company forecasts GMV and revenue growth between 12% and 17% for the coming year. Adjusted EBIT is projected to reach €660 million to €740 million, driven by improved performance in the core business and faster-than-expected synergies from the ABOUT YOU acquisition.

Zalando now expects to reach its previously announced €100 million synergy run-rate by 2028, one year earlier than originally planned.

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