V-Mart Retail Ltd. has announced its unaudited financial results for the quarter and six months ended September 30, 2018 which were approved by the company’s board of directors at its meeting held on November 02, 2018.
During the first half of FY18-19, the company reported revenue of Rs 6,234 million, EBITDA of Rs 393 million, PAT of Rs 208 million, and same store sales growth (SSSG) of 1 percent. For the second quarter, FY19, revenue stood at Rs 2,622 million, increasing from Rs 2,419 million YoY. This came in the backdrop of Durga Puja and Navratra shifting to Q3 from Q2 in the CY, and consequently, the deferment of festive shopping by the company’s large customer base in eastern India.
Continuing its calibrated expansion drive, the company opened 11 new stores during the second quarter, including 4 in Assam, thus taking the total store count to 190 stores in15 states with an aggregate retail area of more than 1.6 million sq.ft. On a cumulative basis in H1, the company added 19 new stores totaling 166,500 sq.ft. in retail area. With the store launches in Assam, the ‘gateway to the seven sisters’, coming on schedule, the company has successfully forayed into the relatively untapped North East market.
Lalit Agarwal, CMD, V-Mart Retail Ltd. said, “We see lot of untapped opportunity in the growing aspiration to ‘look good’among our target audience in Tier II and III markets, and in regions like North East that are relatively underserved by modern retail. As a value retailing pioneer with affordable fashion as our core plank for the aspiring class, V-Mart is focused on delivering the best combination of affordability, quality and variety to its customers.”
The company also made significant strides in its skill development and employment generation initiative, ‘Project Hunar’, and has been allocated projects by four states – Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Under its CSR initiatives, the company has selected 355 underprivileged meritorious students for its scholarship program, ‘Ujjwal Bhavishya’, and will support their higher education annually. Through Project Readvantage, an initiative to enable school children in smaller towns to build English reading and comprehension skills, V-Mart has been able to reach out to 3,550 new kids (grades 1-3) in Kanpur, Allahabad, Patna and Chakia.
Outlook
With the traditional festive buying for both Durga Puja/ Navratra and Diwali taking place in Q3, the cumulative impact of the two biggest annual shopping occasions in eastern India is expected to make the third quarter an even bigger contributor to the company’s performance this year. Moreover, a ‘winter Diwali’ is likely to prompt several shoppers to advance purchases of higher-value winterwear, e.g. pullovers and jackets.
With Q3 slated to witness much-bigger-than-usual shopping spends and the advancement of winter shopping, the company has stocked its stores with a large variety of affordable and high-quality fashion apparel for the entire family. The merchandise includes a wide collection of highly popular and fast-selling items like camouflage military print t-shirts for men; long gowns and jump suits for women; joggers for boys; lacha set and dungarees for girls; and an attractive winter collection for the newborns. To tap the festive buying momentum, the company is undertaking many visual merchandizing initiatives, and has also planned clutter-breaking marketing campaigns at its existing and new stores to connect with customers and drive footfalls and conversions.
