DMart’s huge Rs 18000 cr possible valuation at IPO

At a time when most of the e-commerce companies are juggling revenue and nose-diving valuation numbers, DMart is an offline winner.

Quoting sources, the Economic Times’s reported that DMart’s valuation number may be revised to Rs 18000 cr from Rs 7000 cr pegged earlier. DMart has stayed profitable for 15 straight years of its existence. While this clearly indicates a solid business model, what also differentiates it from the others is consistency.

Put that beside the entries of the three biggies: Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Carrefour SA, Metro AG (Germany), that failed or had to cut back considerably.

Neither these offline companies, nor online grocery delivery startups (are any of them around?) have been able to put to a dent on DMart.

Started by Radhakishan Damani in 2000, DMart is representative of traditional businesses in core sectors that are winning the market. The DMart supermarket chain is owned and operated by Avenue Supermarts Limited (ASL), and has a presence in 117 locations across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and NCR.

While a lot of people would say that it’s unfair to compare traditional and new-age business models, what one should understand that at the end of the day, it’s about the money. The retail industry accounts for 10 percent of India’s GDP and eight percent of the country’s employment. The retail market is slated for growth and is expected to double to $1 trillion by 2020.

Walmart India has plans to add 50 more cash-and-carry stores across the country in the next four to five years. The market is open for the hungry, but one should eat only as much as one can digest.

Did the smart venture online, and the wise stay offline?