PETALING JAYA: MR DIY Group (M) Bhd announced a 44% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in net profit for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021 driven by higher average monthly sales per store.
The home improvement retailer said the strong growth was also on the back of lower sales during the comparative quarter last year, when the first nationwide lockdown was imposed between March and early May 2020, as well as positive contributions from new stores.
Total revenue in the second quarter rose by 47% y-o-y to RM759.8mil.
“This is the group’s fourth consecutive quarter of positive y-o-y revenue and earnings since its listing despite the continuously challenging operating environment,” it said in a filing with the stock exchange yesterday.
Earnings per share were 1.31 sen in the quarter. The group declared a dividend of 0.6 sen for the three-month period.
For the six-month financial period ended June 30, MR DIY registered cumulative revenue and net profit of RM1.63bil and RM206.9mil respectively, up by 55% and 79% compared with the corresponding period in 2020.“The overall growth for the period under review was mainly attributable to the strong sales momentum from the first quarter of financial year 2021, which continued into April and May 2021, as well as positive contributions from new stores.
In the first half of the year, MR DIY saw a net growth of 93 stores across its three brands – MR DIY, MR TOY and MR DOLLAR, representing an increase of 13% from December 2020.
The majority of the new stores added were for the MR DIY brand.
This brings the group’s total number of stores to 827 as at June 30.
The group aims to open a further 82 stores across all three brands in the second half of 2021, subject to circumstances allowing the group to resume normal monthly store opening rates within a reasonable period of time.
According to MR DIY chief executive officer Adrian Ong, the group will continue to stay focused on its three strategic priorities to drive long-term sustainable growth.
The priorities are, namely, taking a disciplined, data-driven approach to growing its store network, looking for opportunities to deliver value, and a relentless focus on delivering operational efficiencies.
The group would introduce innovative ways to deliver “the MR DIY experience”.
“This quarter, we launched MR DIY Express, a new way of taking our modern retail store format to rural and smaller towns.
“The stores are typically smaller, can be set up quickly and cost-efficiently, making it possible for us to expand the concept quickly across the country,” he said.
“The MR DIY Express concept allows us to remain agile and dynamic, to continue to drive growth in this unpredictable retail environment,” he said.
Ong added that in addition to driving growth, the group also continued to make community outreach a key priority.
“To continue to support our communities, we have stepped up our community outreach activities and currently run two types of broad-based programmes – those that are designed to alleviate the effects of the pandemic and those that are community-based.
“We have run 31 such programmes so far in 2021, eight of which were related to helping those affected by the pandemic, whilst 23 were general community initiatives.
“We will continue to look for opportunities to keep our communities safe, help communities in need and make a positive difference,” he said.
Some of these activities included providing personal protective equipment and stationery products to various vaccine distribution centres across the Klang Valley, equipping a number of Covid-19 assessment centres with oxygen tanks and food donations to support the efforts of non-governmental organisations and food banks as well as to families within the vicinity of selected stores.
Source: The Star
