Courier company Blue Dart Express, a DHL group company, reported a rather dull set of numbers for the June quarter.
The company’s sales rose by 5.4% to Rs 453.2 crore, a figure that includes a fuel surcharge component linked to market-based prices.
Now, the fuel surcharge in the June quarter, on an average, is down by 3.33 percentage points compared to the same quarter in 2012 for domestic and regional shipments, and 1.5 percentage points for international shipments.
Lower sales growth could have been partly owing to a lower fuel surcharge component in sales as well. But that can be only part of the reason and a poor business environment too would be responsible for slower growth.
Expenditure rose quite sharply and was up by 8.3% over the June 2012 quarter and as a result its operating profit fell by 15.8%. Operating profit margin declined by 2.6 percentage points to 10.7% in the June quarter, while they declined by 1.8 percentage points compared to the March quarter.
Other income rose from Rs 8 crore to Rs 18.5 crore and was the only reason why Blue Dart’s profit growth was flat compared to the year ago quarter. Otherwise it would have registered a sharp decline.
Investors don’t seem perturbed by these numbers and the share closed the day higher by 1.3%.
Blue Dart’s financial results and press release can be found here and here.