Avenue Supermarts, owner of retail chain DMart, on Thursday reported a 17.5% rise in its standalone revenue at Rs 15,565.23 crore in the quarter that ended on December 31. It had reported a revenue of Rs 13,247.33 crore during the same quarter in 2023-24.
In the July-September quarter, the company had reported lower-than-expected numbers. In the analyst call, the management of the company acknowledged that their sales at metro stores were impacted due to the online grocery channels, including quick commerce.
Notably, DMart’s metro stores typically attract record-high turnovers for the business.
According to Kotak Institutional Equities, Dmart had 377 stores as of September 2024 and 117 out of these were in top-tier cities. These are also witnessing the maximum new additions by quick commerce companies.
“We reckon these stores operate at revenue throughputs that are much higher than the company-level average and consequently may be impacted disproportionately more by competition from quick commerce,” it said.
During Q2FY25, the company had opened six stores, as compared to nine in the same quarter of the previous year. However, in the December quarter, it has updated this number to 10.
According to an exchange filing by the company, the total number of stores as of December 2024 stood at 387.
In FY23 and FY24, DMart opened 40 and 41 stores each. It has indicated that it will keep this momentum going in FY25. Nuvama Institutional Equities has said that in FY25, this number is expected to rise to 45.
The company has also started raising discounts on products to maintain a competitive edge. According to Goldman Sachs, the discounts offered on maximum retail price (MRP) by DMart for a basket of grocery produce have increased to 25% in December. In July, this was around 15%. Moreover, it has also started selling white-label products.
DMart is promoted by Radhakishan Damani and his family.