Verkkokauppa.com - Riding the wave

Verkkokauppa.com’s growth story has continued over the years and the company’s revenue CAGR in 2010-2019 was 12.6 percent. Now the company has started to put more emphasize on profitability. We keep our rating “BUY” with TP of EUR 6.3.

Focusing on profitable growth
Verkkokauppa.com’s revenue CAGR in 2010-2019 was 12.6 percent. The growth has been mainly supported by competitive pricing, strong online positioning and new product categories. The competition in the consumer electronics market has continued fierce and price driven. The company’s efficient and scalable cost base driven by small physical footprint enables competitive pricing and strong reliance against competition. The company has a strong net cash position which enables investments in growth. The company has started to put more emphasis on profitability of which the first evidences have already been seen.

Better profitability improvement via gross margin increase
Verkkokauppa.com’s future growth is depended on the online migration. According to the company, online sales represent some 12-13 percent of the total Finnish retail market. The company’s extremely good performance in H1’20 has been partly driven by the COVID-19, as sales grew by 11 percent and adj. EBIT grew by over 240 percent. It is challenging to estimate how permanent the market changes will be. However, increased online demand benefits e-commerce players such as Verkkokauppa.com. At the same time, risks related to the overall economic outlook and declining purchasing power have increased. Due to the low and scalable cost base we expect the company’s profitability to improve together with revenue growth. However, we see that better profitability improvement stems from higher gross margin levels.

“BUY” with TP of EUR 6.3 intact
We have slightly increased our estimates and expect sales in 20E-21E to grow by ~7 percent and ~4 percent, respectively. We also expect profitability to improve and adj. EBIT margin of 3.2-3.3 percent in 20E-21E. We value Verkkokauppa.com by using our scenario analysis which indicates a fair value of EUR 6.3. On our estimates, Verkkokauppa.com trades at 20E-21E EV/EBIT multiple of 10.9x and 10.7x, which translates into ~60 percent discount compared to the peers. 20E-21E EV/Sales multiple is ~30 percent below peers. We keep our rating “BUY” with TP of EUR 6.3.

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