PETALING JAYA: MR DIY Group (M) Bhd (MR DIY) is keeping its focus on sustainable revenue and earnings expansion moving forward, while pledging to deliver long-term growth and value to its stakeholders.
It said the objectives will be achieved through a combination of a strategic store expansion plan, improving operating efficiency, investments in technology and capturing development opportunities through measured investments in new retail concepts adjacent to its current retail verticals.
MR DIY’s results for the second quarter ended June 30 (2Q24) underscored its growth-themed progressive strategy, which saw the home improvement retailer’s net profit notch up 3.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM155.2mil, as revenue increased by 8.8% to RM1.2bil.
On a year-to-date basis, net earnings rose 7.9% y-o-y to RM300mil, as turnover also extended by 9% to RM2.34bil.
The group attributed the positive showing for the quarter and the first half of 2024 (1H24) primarily to strong contributions from its new stores, reporting that in 2Q24 alone, it had opened 42 net new stores, bringing the total store count as at 1H24 to 1,340.
“This marked an increase of 14.7% y-o-y compared to the corresponding period in the previous year,” it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday.
Correspondingly, MR DIY said total transactions rose 13% and 14.4% y-o-y to 46.2 million transactions and 90.4 million transactions respectively for 2Q24 and 1H24, though this was partially offset by a lower average basket size.
It said average basket size contracted 3.8% y-o-y for the quarter and 4.7% for the six months ended June, possibly due to lower item volume per basket as a result of tighter household spend.
Meanwhile, compared to the preceding three months ended March 31, net profit grew 7.6% from RM144.9mil, as revenue went up 4.7% from RM1.14bil, driven mainly by an increase in its number of stores and higher sales during the festive season in 2Q24.
In light of its improving profitability, MR DIY declared a dividend of 1.2 sen per share for the quarter in review, bringing the total dividend for the current fiscal year to 2.2 sen per share, representing a 57% y-o-y increase from last year’s dividend payout.