One of the leading players in the express logistics segment, Blue Dart is quite hopeful about a quicker economic recovery as it looks at the revival in demand in sectors like like e-commerce and consumer electronics. While it views the recent GST collection numbers, e-way bills generated and Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) as signs of recovery, Blue Dart has recorded higher growth in shipments of essential items like pharma, medical equipment and computer accessories.
“Like most companies or rather every company, there has been stress in revenue and profit as reflected in Q1 results. But we are very optimistic about the future. And we are seeing a lot of green shoots in the economy. If you see the GST collections, they are improving. The e-way bill numbers are improving. The PMI Index is coming back slowly,” Ketan Kulkarni, Head of Business Development and CMO at Blue Dart said.
Blue Dart Express Ltd had reported a net loss of INR 127.94 crore in the April-June quarter against the profit of INR 4.59 crore in the same period last year. Its total revenue from operations during the first quarter stood at INR 414 crore.
The DHL group firm is, however, witnessing a turn of events and is expecting its business to return to normalcy soon. Parcel delivery time and cargo movement time have now reached pre-lockdown level. “That has now eased to a great extent. We are back to the transit time we always had,” Kulkarni said.
“Blue Dart, as part of Deutsche Post DHL’s eCommerce Solutions division, aims to enable the strong growth momentum that has been seen in the dynamic recovery post the COVID– 19 Pandemic in India. We will continue to focus on all core sectors as the trade facilitator of the nation,” he added.
Blue Dart has come up with attractive pricing offers to attract new businesses especially in the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector. It is also tweaking its business to align it with the government’s Vocal for Local and Make in India initiatives. “We are working very closely with the MSME sector. We understand they are greatly stressed. So, we recently introduced Fight Covid-19 pricing, especially for the MSME sector. We are very enthused about government’s campaigns of Make in India, Vocal about Local, and we are rejigging our business to support those initiatives,” said Kulkarni.
