(Reuters) – Indian courier delivery firm Blue Dart Express reported a fall in third-quarter profit on Wednesday due to higher freight costs.
The company’s consolidated net profit fell 8.9% year-on-year to 810.1 million rupees ($9.4 million) for the quarter ended Dec. 31.
Total expenses rose 9% due to an 11% jump in freight costs, which hurt the company’s bottom line.
Its revenue from operations rose 9.3% to 15.12 billion rupees during the quarter.
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KEY CONTEXT
A slowdown in India’s economic activity has weighed on the demand for services of domestic logistics companies, which also cater to other businesses, analysts said.
These companies have additionally been grappling with soaring costs and tough competition, especially from the logistics arms of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.
On Monday, rival Mahindra Logistics also flagged higher expenses as it reported its eighth straight quarterly loss.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
(next 12 months)
months)
RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div
TDA growth growth rating analyst price yield
(%) (%) * s target** (%)
Blue Dart Express 34.76 16.43 12.54 44.16 Hold 6 0.86 0.39
Ltd
Delhivery Ltd 66.74 32.50 15.85 216.21 Buy 21 0.71 NULL
Mahindra 38.63 7.94 15.26 704.68 Sell 11 0.96 0.71
Logistics Ltd
VRL Logistics Ltd 22.38 8.86 12.47 46.93 Buy 9 0.72 1.13
* The mean of analysts’ ratings standardized to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** The ratio of the stock’s last close to analysts’ mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
OCTOBER-DECEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 86.5500 Indian rupees
($1 = Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Vijay Malkar in Bengaluru)
