The Temple & Webster Group Ltd (ASX: TPW) share price is under pressure on Tuesday morning.
At the time of writing, the online furniture and homewares retailer's shares are down 13% to $4.32.
This follows the release of Temple & Webster's half year results, which appears to have disappointed the market.
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Temple & Webster share price falls on major profit decline
- Revenue down 12% to $207.1 million
- EBITDA margin of 3.5%
- Net profit after tax down 46.7% to $3.9 million
- Cash balance of $102.4 million
What happened during the first half?
For the six months ended 31 December, Temple & Webster reported a 12% decline in revenue to $207.1 million. This reflects a decline in active customers to 840,000, offset partially by an increase in revenue per active customer.
In addition, management highlights that this half was going to be the toughest period for year over year comparisons due to the timings of lockdowns in FY 2022.
Positively, things improved in the second quarter. Revenue was down 18% in the first quarter, 6% in the second quarter, and marginally higher during the month of December.
In respect to earnings, Temple & Webster reported an EBITDA margin of 3.5%. This was towards the low end of its full year target range of 3% to 5%. Excluding its investment in The Build, its EBITDA margin would have been 4.7%. This reflects its focus on accelerating cost base initiatives and margin improvement programs.
How does this compare to expectations?
A note out of Goldman Sachs reveals that Temple & Webster's revenue was in line and its earnings were notably ahead of its expectations.
The broker also remains confident that the revenue environment has stabilised and the company is well positioned to deliver strong medium term growth through increasing population penetration and growing market share of online.
Management commentary
Temple & Webster's CEO, Mark Coulter, was pleased with the half. He said:
We're pleased with the progress made during the half, with a return to year-on-year profit growth in Q2 as we benefited from our focus on margin optimisation and cost management, despite revenue being down year-on-year, which highlights the flexibility of the business model.
While we dialed back spend in the half, we continued investing in our digital capabilities, product range and target verticals, with our Trade and Commercial and Home Improvement businesses growing 17% and 12% respectively.
Pricing remains a key differentiator for the business, growing our gross margin through strategic pricing initiatives and better sourcing. Similarly, with 72% drop ship that carries no inventory risk and 28% private label inventory, through our supply chain model we further improved flexibility and our product range, placing us in a strong position to continue growing market share.
Outlook
Also potentially weighing on the Temple & Webster share price today was its trading update.
Management revealed that for the first five weeks of the second half, its sales were down 7% over the prior corresponding period. Though, this has once again been blamed on strong sales a year earlier due to the omicron outbreak.
The company remains positive on its outlook and revealed that it could look to accelerate its growth by putting its $100 million cash balance to work with acquisitions. Mr Coulter commented:
We remain committed to our profitable growth strategy and will continue our focus on margin optimisation and cost management to ensure we end the year within our 3-5% EBITDA range. We believe our business model, customer metrics, brand and new growth horizons position us well to navigate any trading conditions and return to a high growth business.
Furthermore, we have over $100m of cash to expand our roadmap of sales initiatives and pursue inorganic opportunities to support sustainable growth. Longer-term, ecommerce in the Australian furniture & homewares category remains highly under-penetrated, and we have a much larger addressable market to go after in our new target verticals.
