Verkkokauppa.com - Growth investments impacting profitability

Verkkokauppa.com will report its Q2 earnings on next week’s Friday, August 9th. We expect the competition in consumer electronics market has continued tight and price driven. We expect Q2’19 revenue to grow and profitability to remain flat. We keep our rating “Buy” with TP of EUR 4.7 ahead of Q2.

Marketing expenses hampering EBIT improvement

According to Verkkokauppa.com, the company continues focusing on growth and enhancing consumer experience. The company has made extensive investments in marketing from Q4’18 onwards and has indicated that the investments will continue throughout 2019. We expect these to hamper EBIT improvement this year. Verkkokauppa.com’s guidance for 2019E revenue is EUR 500-550m while EBIT is expected to be between EUR 11-17m. We expect 2019E revenue of EUR 522m (cons. EUR 524m) and EBIT of EUR 13m (cons. EUR 13m). We expect the increased revenue from the Raisio store, which was opened in Q1’18, to stabilize Q2’19 onwards.

Tight competition expected to continue

Despite of the tight competition, the company was able to strengthen its market share in Q1’19 but as the company has indicated, Q2 is normally weaker. As we expect the competition has remained fierce and price driven, we do not expect any improvements in Q2 margins. We expect Q2 revenue of EUR 111m (8.4% y/y) while consensus is at EUR 114m and EBIT of EUR 1m (cons. of EUR 1.4m) resulting in EBIT margin of 0.8%. We expect gross margin of 14.5% in Q2’19 (Q2’18: 14.7%). Possible wholesale/B2B deliveries might further impact gross margin in Q2.

“Buy” with TP of EUR 4.7

We have kept our estimates intact ahead of Q2 earnings. On our estimates, Verkkokauppa.com is trading at 19E-20E EV/EBIT multiple of 10.7x and 7.7x which translates into ~50-70% discount compared to the online-focused Nordic and European peer group. We keep our rating “BUY” with target price of EUR 4.7 ahead of Q2.

Open Report