D-Mart's Q2 net profit up 64.13% to Rs 685.71 crore; sales up 36.6%

D-Mart retail chain owner Avenue Supermarts on Saturday reported a 64.13 per cent rise in its consolidated net profit at Rs 685.71 crore in the July-September quarter of FY23 as the average basket values continue to be elevated.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 417.76 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago, said Avenue Supermarts in a BSE filing.

Its revenue from operations was up 36.58 per cent at Rs 10,638.33 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 7,788.94 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Avenue Supermarts' total expenses stood at Rs 9,925.95 crore, up 36.93 per cent in Q2/FY23, as against Rs 7,248.74 crore of the corresponding quarter.

Avenue Supermarts CEO & Managing Director Neville Noronha said during the quarter FMCG and staples segment of the business has performed better than the general merchandise and apparel segments.

However, "discretionary items in the non-FMCG segment while recovering have still not come back to pre-pandemic levels. Average basket values continue to be elevated and footfalls continue to be lower than pre-pandemic levels," he said.

After third-wave of Covid-19, basket values again increased but footfalls reduced commensurate to that basket value. It has remained like that till September 2022, he added.

"Reduction of footfalls coupled with increased basket values make FMCG shopping more productive and profitable. However, it has a direct negative impact on the more profitable non-FMCG categories. As and when footfalls increase, we assume we should be inching towards our pre-pandemic contributions for apparel and general merchandise sales," Noronha said.

During the quarter, its e-commerce business DMart Ready also continued to deepen its presence and commenced operations in six more cities.

"We are now present in 18 cities across India," said Noronha, adding, "more than 90 per cent of our revenues still continue to come from Mumbai (MMR), Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. These large towns are holding on to their Covid-19 time revenues."

For the first half of the fiscal, Avenue Supermarts' revenue from operations was up 59.39 per cent at Rs 20,676.40 crore as against Rs 12,972.06 crore registered in the April-September period of FY22.

The net profit in the first half of the Damani family-promoted supermarket chain was up over two folds at Rs 1,328.60 crore as against Rs 513.12 crore.

As of September 30, 2022, D-Mart was operating 302 stores in markets such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Daman, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, NCR, Chhattisgarh and Punjab.