Avenue Supermarkets or D-Mart posted a good performance for Q3FY21 with a 16% (YoY) rise in consolidated net profit at Rs.447 crore on a 11% increase in revenue at Rs.6808 crore.

Its EBITDA for the quarter rose 15% at Rs.689 crore while margins rose from 8.8% to 9.1%.

The company said that its agile OPEX management along with a good surge in festival shopping allowed us to deliver a significantly better quarter than the previous two quarters though Dec month didn’t trend as well as the festival months of Oct and Nov. Two years and older DMart stores did ~96% of December 2019 sales in the month of December 2020.

The company said that restricted store operations in certain cities post Diwali due to night curfews and weekend closure led to significantly larger declines in those stores versus same period last year. There continues to be a distinct behaviour of doing shopping more efficiently by shoppers. Lesser trips and higher basket values continue to be the norm. While there is a general reduction in basket values compared to peak pandemic levels, they still continue to be relatively higher than pre Covid-19 levels.

The company continues to face inconsistent supplies from the non FMCG sector and raw material prices are also going up. Availability in certain categories is likely to get worse before getting better and the company feels that this could have an impact on sales mix and margins in the near term.

The stock price rose 5.5% to hit an intraday high at Rs.3130 the moment it opened for trade today and is now trending at Rs.3015 levels. Its market cap stands very close to Rs.2 trillion.