Indian baby products retailer FirstCry's first-quarter loss narrows as demand swells

Brainbees Solutions

30/08/2024 14:15

BENGALURU, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Indian baby products
retailer FirstCry's  BRAE.NS  quarterly loss narrowed from a
year earlier on the back of strong demand, it said on Friday in
its first earnings report since going public earlier this month.
    The company's consolidated net loss narrowed to 567.1
million rupees (about $7 million) in the quarter ended June 30,
from 901.3 million rupees a year ago.
    The childcare market in the world's most populous country is
growing rapidly, which bodes well for FirstCry, analysts have
said.  
    The IPO of FirstCry, which competes with online kids' store
Hopscotch, Shoppers Stop  SHOP.NS  and Flipkart-owned Myntra,
was oversubscribed 12 times earlier this month. 
    FirstCry's quarterly gross merchandise value, a key metric
to track the monetary value of orders received, surged 17% from
a year earlier to 23.18 billion rupees in the quarter. 
    Its revenue from operations also rose 17% to 16.52 billion
rupees on strong demand for its products, which include baby
diapers, toys, clothes and footwear. 
    Expenses rose about 13% to 16.03 billion rupees, owing to a
10.5% rise in raw material costs. 
    Shares of the company ended about 2% higher ahead of the
results. They have fallen about 6% since the listing. 

  

($1 = 83.8100 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Manvi Pant and Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru;
Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
 ((Hritam.Mukherjee@thomsonreuters.com; X: @MukherjeeHritam;))