The company’s strong year-on-year performance is mostly due to a weak base in the year-ago quarter when the national lockdown had devastated earnings.
A poll by ET Now had expected the company’s net profit to come in at Rs 160 crore for the quarter on sales of Rs 5,032 crore
On the operating front, the company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization more than doubled on year to Rs 221 crore. The operating margin in the quarter jumped 160 basis points on year to 4.4 per cent.
While the year-on-year performance of the company looks optically strong, the impact of the devastating second wave of Covid-19 is seen in the sequential performance.
D-Mart’s revenue from operations tanked 31 per cent on-quarter, while its net profit nosedived 73.5 per cent as state-wide lockdowns took the toll on the operation.
“Q1 FY 2021-22 saw a much stronger second wave of Covid-19 restrictions. We lost significantly more days or had higher restrictions on the number of hours of store operations compared to the same period last year,” said managing director and chief executive officer Neville Noronha.
DMart said that despite lesser hours of operations this time, it had more customer footfalls than in the same period last year, which translated into higher sales in the June quarter.
Shares of the retailer ended 0.3 per cent lower at Rs 3,380 on the National Stock Exchange on Friday.
