Australian fashion and lifestyle platform The Iconic has reported an $18.9 million jump in its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), which hit $45.7 million in the full-year.
This comes as its parent company, Global Fashion Group (GFG), shares its full-year trading performance, which also includes two other fashion platforms Zalora in South East Asia and Dafiti in Latin America.
The Iconic’s 2025 EBITDA is also up on 2023 numbers by $49.8 million.
Alongside earnings, the Australian platform also reported a 6 per cent lift in its net merchandise value (NMV) to $893 million. Across GFG, The Iconic is its largest region, contributing 49 per cent to the total group NMV.
NMV is the total value of completed e-commerce sales after deducting returns, refunds and cancellations from the gross merchandise volume (GMV).
For comparison, Dafiti in LATAM saw a 6.1 per cent increase in total NMV for 2025, contributing 30 per cent to group NMV, while Zalora in SEA saw a fall in NMV by 9.7 per cent, contributing around 20 per cent.
The Iconic also hit a record gross margin of 49 per cent in 2025, which is up 2 percentage points from 2024. This is reportedly supported by disciplined commercial execution and a higher share of marketplace and platform services.
Just over a third (36 per cent) of The Iconic’s NMV is now delivered via marketplace.
The Iconic CEO Jere Calmes said 2025 was a pivotal year for the fashion platform.
“Over the past 12 months, we have improved profitability by elevating our assortment, strengthening our delivery proposition, sharpening our marketing investment and maintaining disciplined cost control,” Calmes said. “Building on our return to growth in the second half of 2024, we have carried that momentum through FY25 to deliver a strong full-year result.”
Calmes added his team are building a more scalable platform model for its customers and brand partners.
“As AI pushes fashion retail even further into the digital space, the brands that win will be the ones that understand customers best, and we are uniquely positioned to excel at fashion e-commerce at scale across ANZ.”
Some key initiatives pushed by The Iconic in 2025 include expanded delivery options across the eastern seaboard of Australia. This includes reducing Melbourne’s free standard delivery times by more than 50 per cent. New Zealand delivery was improved by 15 per cent, with next day delivery also introduced to NZ metro locations.
The Iconic also launched its official loyalty program in October 2025. Over 2 million active customers were migrated to the program ahead of peak trade across Black Friday. Early engagement has been strong, with over 960,000 members earning the programʼs currency ‘ICONSʼ since launch, and more than 280,000 new members signing up. The program has recorded a tag rate of 84 per cent.
Meanwhile, The Iconic continued its masterbrand campaign, ‘Got You Looking’. Amongst the campaignʼs target audience, unprompted awareness is up 70 per cent from the platform’s 2023 pre-launch baseline. Customer trust has reportedly increased more than 60 per cent and 60 per cent of viewers take action after seeing its ads.
For the full-year 2025, GFG as a group generated €1.0 billion in NMV, equivalent to around A$1.64 billion. This is up just 0.3 per cent overall.
The group’s revenue decreased by 0.6 per cent in 2025, with group-wide marketplace NMV share increasing to 39 per cent. Alongside this, group gross margin bumped up by 1.5ppts to 46.4 per cent, with its EBITDA margin returning to positive of 1.4 per cent.
GFG CEO Christoph Barchewitz said 2025 marked an important step forward in GFG’s journey to profitable growth.
“Over the past three years, we have reset and solidified our foundations by evolving our business model, strengthening our customer flywheel and driving cost efficiency,” Barchewitz said. “These efforts enabled us to achieve a positive adjusted EBITDA for the full year.
“Driven by a return to growth in ANZ and LATAM, we stabilised our topline despite varying levels of consumer demand. We entered 2026 with a much stronger margin profile, a healthy balance sheet and the liquidity needed to capture our growth opportunities ahead.”
Amid this result, the management board of GFG has resolved to initiate a share buyback program, with the approval of the supervisory board.
The programme covers the repurchase of up to 15 million shares of the company with a total purchase price (excluding incidental transaction charges) of up to €3 million.
The program is expected to start on March 9, 2026 and to end by February 26, 2027 at the latest. The buyback program is based on the authorisation granted by the annual general meeting of shareholders held in 2021, under which the company may repurchase up to 43,019,861 common GFG shares.
This authorisation is scheduled to expire on May 25, 2026. A new buyback authorisation will be proposed at the annual general meeting of shareholders scheduled for May 20, 2026. If the new authorisation is not approved, the buyback program will end on May 25, 2026.