Justdial Shares Jump 8.5% Intraday To Touch A Fresh 52-Week High After Q3 Earnings Beat

Shares of hyperlocal search engine Justdial jumped as much as 8.5% during the intraday trading, touching a fresh 52-week high at INR 945.8 on the BSE on Monday (January 15) following its better-than-expected Q3 FY24 earnings.

Last Friday, Justdial reported a 22.3% year-on-year (YoY) increase in its consolidated net profit to INR 92 Cr in the December quarter of 2023. Operating revenue jumped almost 20% YoY to INR 265 Cr.

Beating the Street estimates, the company’s EBITDA rose 122.8% YoY to INR 60.4 Cr in Q3 FY24. Though the company saw a drop in the number of unique visitors on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it rose on a YoY basis.

At 22.8%, Justdial’s EBITDA margin witnessed a 1,054 bps YoY and 406 bps QoQ expansion,  which the company said was led by top line growth and strong cost controls on employee and other expenses fronts. The December quarter was also the seventh consecutive quarter when Justdial saw sequential margin expansion.

After the sharp jump intraday, Justdial shares shed most of their gains and ended today’s trading session 1.9% higher at INR 888.25 on the BSE.

JM Financial raised its price target (PT) on the stock to INR 1,010 from INR 950 earlier.

The brokerage sees Justdial’s margin expanding to 25.3% by FY26, driven by improving sales productivity and scale-back of investments towards new initiatives. 

Speaking on the sequential degrowth in unique visitors, the brokerage said, “We believe this slowdown is partly due to focus on profitability and expect the management to re-focus on growth acceleration in the coming quarters.”

On the other hand, UBS has also reportedly raised its PT on the stock to INR 1,125 from INR 1,050 earlier.

The rise in Justdial shares today also came as the broader market witnessed a lift-up from largely positive Q3 FY24 results of IT companies. The benchmark indices Nifty50 and Sensex touched new record highs on Monday.

While Nifty50 ended the session 0.93% higher at 22,097.45, Sensex closed 1.05% higher at 73,327.94.

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