Indonesian e-commerce company Bukalapak is more confident in delivering its long-term mission of turning profitable by the fourth quarter of 2023 after having posted six sequential quarters of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) improvement.
The group said in a statement on Monday that the firm that its revenue was IDR 1.18 trillion ($78.03 million), an increase of 30 percent year-over-year for the second quarter.
Its adjusted EBITDA for the quarter stood at IDR (125) billion ($8.27 million), an improvement of 65 percent year on year.
That represents a 30 percent improvement on the original guidance it gave at the time of the full year and first quarter results where the range was a loss of IDR 150-175 billion ($9.92 million to $11.57 million) for the second quarter.
“The second quarter of 2023 was another good quarter for us. Both our Marketplace business and O2O operation continue to deliver good results across our apps and platform,” said Teddy Oetomo, Bukalapak’s President.
He said the firm achieved strong revenue growth and profitability improvements across all of its segments, whilst maintaining a strong balance sheet.
“As a result, we’re still confident of maintaining our guidance to be profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis by the year end,” he said.
According to the statement, the firm is maintaining its guidance of being profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis by the year end 2023.
It said the first half has been an encouraging start to the year as the firm has demonstrated its commitment to delivering sustainable profitable growth.
As the business scales over the coming years, it said the focus is on growing its higher take-rate businesses and driving operational efficiencies so that the long-term growth momentum continues.
It noted that Bukalapak has seen the take-rate expand 28 basis points to 2.67 percent in the first half from 2.39 percent in the corresponding period last year due to the improved sourcing and supply chain efficiencies.
It said there is further scope to improve the take-rate in the future as the benefits of the higher take-rate products are felt across the platform.
“Having made a good start in the first half of the year, we’re very focused on continuing to execute well through the remainder of the year,” said Oetomo.
According to him, the margin expansion story continues to play out and the business has good momentum as well as excellent future growth opportunities.
“Profitable growth on a sustained basis remains the key commitment and we’re optimistic that we can continue to deliver this for our shareholders over the long-term,” he added.
According to the statement, the group’s marketplace revenue grew 74 percent year-over-year to IDR 684 billion ($45.24 million).
The overall contribution margin has delivered a 622 percent improvement year-over-year as the sales and marketing costs as a percentage of total processing value (TPV) declined to 0.42 percent from 0.75 percent.
The lower ratio allowed the contribution margin to grow to IDR 124 billion ($8.2 million) in the second quarter from a loss of IDR 24 billion ($1.59 million) in the corresponding period a year ago.
It said noted that 70 percent of the company’s TPV is generated outside the Tier 1 regions of Indonesia.
The firm noted that twin benefits of an all-commerce penetration model and digitizing trends among offline micro retail stores are evident.
It also said Bukalapak is delivering on the strategy to deliver more profitable and sustainable growth, whilst managing costs and expenses.
The second quarter general and administrative (G&A) expense ratio to TPV has improved to (0.6 percent) versus (1 percent) in the same period last year.
Bukalapak is a group of tech-based companies and a technology super-enabler for Indonesia’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) transformation.
The firm is serving more than 130 million users and over 23 million Indonesian MSMEs through its various solutions.
As a publicly-listed Indonesian technology company, the firm is now focused on using technology to enable digital lifestyles for both Indonesian MSMEs as well as Indonesians in general, across numerous verticals from marketplace, finance and fintech, offline to online, merchant solutions and procurement.