According to reports from NDTV Profit, V-Mart's Chief Financial Officer Anand Agarwal expressed optimism about the company's near-term prospects despite initial concerns about weak monsoons and tightened liquidity. The CFO noted that contrary to initial worries about monsoon strength, the company has seen reasonably good amount of sales and footfalls continuing to happen. While the shift of the festive season from quarter two to quarter three impacted Q2 performance, the company achieved 3% same store sales growth in the last quarter, which Agarwal described as a good number across the industry. As per NDTV Profit, the CFO stated that "we are continuing to see you know reasonable amount of traction on the ground and we are quite optimistic on how the rest of the year is going to go ahead."
As reported by NDTV Profit, Agarwal emphasized that cost pressures have been fairly well mitigated for quarter three, though challenges remain for the medium to long-term perspective. The CFO highlighted that the 3% positive same store sales growth represents the state of the market, noting that the festive shift has affected all retailers similarly. This performance comes despite earlier guidance of flat or negative same store sales growth for quarter two, making the current results particularly positive for the company's outlook. The CFO noted that "on top of that, if we have a 3% positive, that's a good number to begin with. And that's the state across the industry. It's nothing to do with only with V-Mart, but I think that's the state of the market because the festive shift has happened for all."
According to the NDTV Profit interview, V-Mart has been careful not to pass on significant price hikes to customers due to high inflation impact, while maintaining margins from a percentage perspective. However, Agarwal indicated that the fourth quarter might be a bit tough and may see some price hikes depending on geopolitical situations and oil prices. The company is continuing to see hardening of oil pricing, which could necessitate additional price increases from quarter four onwards if oil price pressure continues. As per NDTV Profit, Agarwal stated that "we will maintain the margin at least from a percentage perspective" and outlined that "from quarter four onwards, if the oil price pressure continues to remain where it is, we will need to take some more price hikes."
