Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 8): MR DIY Group (M) Bhd said the group will continue undertaking pricing reviews to address continued input cost pressure, despite logging an 11.99% increase in its third quarter net profit.

The home improvement retailer said the net profit for the quarter ended Sept 30, 2022 (3QFY22) rose to RM101.18 million from RM90.35 million a year earlier, on the back of a 25.8% increase in revenue to RM966.17 million from RM768.02 million.

The group noted that its bottom line during the quarter was hampered by administrative and other operating expenses of RM37.6 million and RM214.7 million, a year-on-year increase of 39% and 38.7%, respectively.

“This was mainly due to business expansion activities, which resulted in increases in staff costs, utility expenses, marketing expenses for promotional activities as well as the depreciation of right-of-use assets, in line with growth in the number of stores,” MR DIY said in a filing with the stock exchange.

Touching on the revenue growth, MR DIY said the increase was primarily attributable to positive same-store sales growth and a 23.4% increase in its total number of stores from 841 to 1,038, leading to a corresponding 40.1% increase in total transactions to 35.8 million.

“The increase also reflects the impact of lockdown measures in 3QFY21 that led to a temporary closure of some stores and lower overall traffic,” it added.

MR DIY declared a single interim dividend of half a sen per share, with an ex-date of Nov 25, payable on Nov 28.

In a separate statement, MR DIY chief executive officer Adrian Ong said the group’s resilience was reflected through 3QFY22’s strong revenue growth and higher transaction value during a period of continued inflation and economic uncertainty.

However, Ong noted that in the current operating environment, it is imperative for the group to remain focused on optimising inventory across its retail platform as well as achieve cost and operational efficiencies.

“To this end, we have identified several key strategic initiatives which we will be exploring in the coming quarters, including optimising the product mix, a pricing review of some product ranges, as well as automation of some operations,” he added.

MR DIY noted that the group had implemented selected price increases across its product range in 2QFY22 and 3QFY22, to mitigate the impact of increased freight and input costs, which it notes has begun to ease in the latter part of 3QFY22.

The group said it remains confident in its ability to deliver long-term sustainable growth premised on the underlying strength of its business, strong unit economics of flagship stores, and new store growth progress.

“The group’s target for 2023 is to continue to open at least 180 new stores across all three brands [MR DIY, MR TOY and MR DOLLAR],” said MR DIY.

Shares in MR DIY ended unchanged at RM1.98 on Tuesday (Nov 8), giving the group a market capitalisation of RM18.67 billion. Year to date, the counter has dropped by 17.73%.

Edited ByS Kanagaraju
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