DMart shares fall 3% after Q3 update; Motilal Oswal sees stock at Rs 4,100

Shares of Radhakishan Damani-led Avenue Supermarts (DMart) fell 3 per cent in Wednesday's trade after the company's December quarter results. In a brief filing, the company said its standalone revenue for December quarter came in at 11,304.58 crore compared with Rs 9,065.02 crore in the year-ago quarter, Rs 7,432.69 crore in the December 2020 quarter and Rs 6,751.94 crore in the December 2019 quarter.

The company said its total number of stores stood at 306 as of December 31. Following the update, the scrip fell 2.62 per cent to hit a low of Rs 3,952.05. With this, the scrip has fallen 16 per cent in the last one year.

Motilal Oswal Securities said standalone revenue grew 25 per cent, which were 6.2 per cent below its estimate. This was largely contributed by the area addition of 23 per cent YoY where the blended revenue per square feet (annualized) declined 2 per cent YoY to Rs 36,100 due increase in average store size, Motilal Oswal said.

"As per our calculation, the LTL growth in Q3FY23 should be in mid-single digit. The management previously indicated that a higher store size takes longer to reach stable revenue per sqft state," it said.

The brokerage said its channel checks suggested that the price hike were taken in the staple segment between 3 per cent and 6 per cent in Q3FY23, which should have supported the overall revenue growth, as the continued soft performance in the value segment may have hurt the ‘non-Staple’ category segment that contributes 25-30 per cent of the revenue pie.

DMart added 4 store against Motilal Oswal's estimate of 12 stores in the quarter. In the H1FY23, DMart has added a total of 18 stores.

"They have added 22 stores in 9MFY23 (vs 50/20 added in FY22/FY21) and we expect 23 new stores to add in 4QFY23, which will lead to store count of 329 by the year-end," Motilal Oswal said.

The brokerage has a target of Rs 4,100 on the stock.

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