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allowing the stores to fulfill most online orders within 15 minutes. To ensure convenience and fast service, each location offers a self-service pick-up point near the checkouts. Eldorado 250 stores are additionally equipped with interactive terminals featuring the full catalogue of Eldorado and its marketplace partners’ products, where customers can order prompt delivery of goods that are not available on the shelves.
Russian supermarket chain Lenta’s consolidated revenue was up 1.2% y/y in 1Q21 after rising 5.3% y/y in 4Q20, the company reported on April 27.
Online sales jumped 7.7x y/y, accounting for 3.6% of total sales in 1Q21 vs. 0.5% in 1Q20. The growth in like-for-like (Lfl) sales slowed from 4% in 4Q20 to 1.3% in 1Q21, as the 11.6% growth in the average ticket was largely offset by a 9.3% drop in traffic.
As bne IntelliNews has reported the coronacrisis has barely affected most of Russia’s leading retail companies as the population were forced to stay-at-home, but switched to online purchases, keeping sales buoyant.
January was the strongest month of 1Q21 for Lenta, which is one of the biggest supermarket chains in the second tier of the sector. Revenues were up 9.4% y/y, before February saw a 2.4% deceleration, mirroring the leap-year effect of 2020. The 5.9% y/y drop in revenue in March reflected last year’s stockpiling.
For the first time, Lenta provided its quarterly financials. The gross margin was up 20bps y/y to 21.8% in 1Q21. However, EBITDA was down 27% y/y, with a 6.2% margin in 1Q21 vs. 8.8% a year ago.
“The compression in the EBITDA margin was due to increased opex pressure, most notably payroll, which was up 90bps y/y as a percentage of revenue. Net income more than halved y/y to RUB1.3bn for a 1.2% margin in 1Q21,” Sova Capital said in a note.
Capex was up 46% y/y to RUB3.1bn. All in all, this led to Lenta reporting free cash flow (FCF) of negative RUB5.4bn vs. negative RUB1.7bn a year ago.
“During a conference call, Lenta’s CFO said that the significant growth in payroll was driven by the c. 3% salary indexation in October 2020, the ongoing development of the company’s Lentochka online express delivery project, the hiring of additional personnel for business development and the mini Lenta format, among other factors. The company reiterated its FY21 guidance, which assumes the introduction of at least 100,000 square meters of selling space, an EBITDA margin above 8% and capex of up to 5% of sales. Lenta’s CFO also
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