British online fashion retailer Asos is targeting the U.S. as a growth market, opening an 800,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in Atlanta, CEO Nicholas Beighton told analysts in releasing the company’s annual financial results.

Asos, whose apparel mainly targets Gen Z consumers, expects to invest about £75 million ($97.8 million) over two years in the warehouse and employ 1,500 workers in building a hub for its U.S. business, which generated £312 million ($406.1 million) in sales in the year ended Aug. 31. The new warehouse initially has capacity for 10 million units, which is expected to double over the next several years to support annual net U.S. sales of about £1.5 billion ($1.95 billion), Beighton said. Asos is targeting £6 billion ($7.8 billion) in global net sales by 2023, he said.

The U.S. is obviously targeted as a growth market; Asos accounts for 0.5% of the U.S. online apparel market, compared to 7.4% in the UK, (which generates about 37% of its annual revenue in the year ended Aug. 31), Beighton said. Globally, eCommerce represents about 17 percent all apparel sales; online apparel sales have increased an average of 22 percent globally in each of the past four years, while Asos has been growing at a 28 percent rate, Beighton said.

Asos’ annual pre-tax profit rose 27.5 percent to £102 ($133 million) in the year ended Aug. 31, as sales jumped 26 percent to £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion). In the U.S., where Asos has 2.5 million active customers, sales rose 19 percent to £312 million ($406 million), while those in the UK were up 23 percent to £861 million ($1.12 billion).

Contact:

Asos, Nicholas Beighton, CEO, +44 20 7756 1000