FSN E-Commerce Ventures, parent of cosmetics-to-fashion retailer Nykaa, on Monday reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth since listing, hurt by stiff competition in its mainstay beauty and personal care (BPC) segment.

Consolidated revenue from operations grew 22.4 percent to 15.07 billion rupees ($181.17 million) in July-September, its slowest year-on-year percentage growth since the company went public in November 2021.

Revenue growth was also muted due to a delay in the festive season, which started in October this year in India as opposed to September a year ago, pushing sales and traffic to the current quarter for a number of retailers.

The festive season in India brings in the lion’s share of annual sales for retailers like Nykaa. It counts Tata Son’s app-based store Tata Cliq, Reliance’s Tira among its competitions.

“Shift of around 20 days in the festive calendar has resulted in some growth being impacted for the quarter,” the company, which sells makeup, personal care items, as well as clothes and other accessories through its app and brick-and-mortar stores, said.

The BPC business’s gross merchandise value (GMV)- the monetary value of all its orders - grew 23 percent, amid rising competition in the segment. It had risen 24 percent in previous quarter and 39 percent in the year-ago quarter.

“Discounting has increased in this category due to proliferation of a number of home-grown brands as well as increasing number of international brands making India a priority market,” Nykaa said.

Analysts at Elara capital had said they did not see any negative impact of increased competition in online BPC.

The company’s overall gross merchandise value (GMV) rose 25 percent to 29.44 billion rupees, aided by company’s flagship sale event in July.

Profit attributable to shareholders grew over 42 percent to 58.5 million rupees, while profit for non-controlling interests jumped over 80 percent.

Shares of the company ended 5 percent higher ahead of the results.

By Nishit Navin; editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee

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