(Reuters) -India’s Mahindra Logistics reported a narrower second-quarter loss on Monday, as increased customer spending ahead of the festive period boosted logistics demand.
The Mumbai-based company’s consolidated net loss shrank to 103.5 million rupees ($1.18 million) during the July-September period, from 107.5 million rupees a year ago.
Revenue rose nearly 11% to 16.85 billion rupees.
For further earnings highlights, click here.
KEY CONTEXT
The logistics business of tech-to-tractor conglomerate Mahindra Group has been battling rising costs and intensifying competition in India’s $342 billion logistics market, and losses related to its 2022 acquisition of express cargo firm Rivigo.
The September-quarter usually precedes India’s festive period, which ran from late-September to end-October this year – a time when higher consumer spending on items such as apparel and electronics fuels demand for logistics services.
Demand for services offered by Mahindra and its peers Delhivery and Blue Dart has been squeezed by rising competition from the in-house logistics arms of e-commerce majors such as Amazon and Walmart- owned Flipkart.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 months) Estimates (next 12 months) Analysts’ sentiment
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue growth (%) Profit growth (%) Mean rating* No. of analysts Stock to price target** Div yield (%)
Mahindra 37.17 10.33 14.43 686.43 Hold 9 1.04 0.64
Logistics
Delhivery 71.89 35.13 16.19 92.94 Buy 22 0.97 NULL
Blue Dart Express 34.37 12.86 10.25 34.87 Buy 4 0.83 0.45
VRL Logistics 21.62 9.25 7.03 13.17 Strong Buy 8 0.78 2.78
* The mean of analyst ratings standardised 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
JULY-SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee and Mridula Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
