V-Mart Retail sees signs of revival in consumption, East drives growth: Lalit Agarwal

Lalit Agarwal, Chairman & Managing Director, V-Mart Retail

Last quarter has been good and things are coming back to normalcy for V-Mart Retail as it sees signs of revival in consumption, said Lalit Agarwal, who founded the company.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Agarwal spoke about consumption trends, growth, margins and more.

V-Mart is targeting a 6-7 percent of like-to-like growth with 13-15 percent revenue growth, Agarwal added.

Geographical Strategy

"We've seen a little bit of challenge in Uttar Pradesh of late, but we saw some comeback from there in the last 1-1.5 months," Agarwal said.

"We are seeing good growth coming in from the eastern side of India and also Bihar." Southern India seems a bit muted right now but low ASP products are doing better, Agarwal added.

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Consumer Behaviour 

Agarwal further spoke about consumer behaviour where he said people are consuming cheaper, lesser price products. "We are seeing comeback of rural and semi urban consumers," he said.

On store additions, Agarwal said they plan to open 50-55 stores in FY25. About 46 new stores were opened in FY24.

Margins and Prices

"We should expect positive margins as we have reduced our price points 14 percent in the last year and now we want to keep it stable. From here we wants the consumption to come back," Agarwal said.

The company reported a 41 percent on-year rise in profit for the the December quarter of the financial year 2023-24.

V-Mart Retail's shares were trading in the green, 0.32 percent at Rs 2179.60 apiece on May 15.