Verkkokauppa.com - Strong momentum continues

Guidance upgrade due to better than expected development

Verkkokauppa.com issued a positive profit warning and upgraded its 2020 guidance. The upgrade is due to a better than expected development during Q3 and improved outlook for the remainder of the year. The company now estimates that the revenue in 2020 is in a scale of EUR 525-550m while adj. EBIT is EUR 17-21m (prev. revenue of EUR 520-545m and adj. EBIT of EUR 13-18m). This is the company’s second positive profit warning within a short period of time as the previous one was given in July.

Consumers still on the move

According to the company, sales and the consumer demand have continued stronger than expected throughout Q3. Against the expectations, the strong demand in many of the key product categories (e.g. consumer electronics) in Q2 has not resulted in a weakened demand in these categories in Q3. It is however likely that the growth in the consumer electronics market hasn’t continued as strong but rather that Verkkokauppa.com has been able win market shares. The management indicated that the demand has continued strong also in other smaller product categories. We expect the lower margin wholesale sales to remain relatively low throughout the year, boosting gross margin development. If the same momentum continues, Verkkokauppa.com’s campaign season in Q4 is likely to be very strong. However, there are still significant uncertainties due to the COVID-19 situation.

“BUY” with TP of EUR 6.3

We have only slightly increased our 20E revenue expectation (EUR 543m) while increasing our adj. EBIT expectation by ~11% (EUR 19.8m). On our estimates, the company trades at 20E-21E EV/EBIT multiple of 10.1x and 10.4x, which translates into a 60-70% discount compared to the peers. We keep our rating “BUY” with TP of EUR 6.3 intact.