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Apollo Hospitals will add 500-600 offline pharmacy stores across the country as it is looking to close the current fiscal with ₹10,000 crore in revenues from its omnichannel pharmacy business.
The offline pharmacy distribution segment was earlier part of Apollo Healthcare Enterprises (hospital business). From March 16, 2022, the pharmacy distribution segment was transferred to Apollo Health Co Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of AHEL. Apollo HealthCo now includes offline pharmacy distribution, online pharmacy distribution, and digital healthcare platform Apollo 24/7.
In FY23, the combined pharmacy business reported a revenue of ₹8,238 crore, compared to ₹6,768 crore in FY22. The company added 1,012 stores in the previous fiscal after adding 411 stores in FY22.
“In Q1 FY24, we consciously slowed down because in the Q4 last year, we added about 380 stores. We want to give that space to stabilise those stores,” said Obul Reddy, CFO, Pharmacy division, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, in the company’s Q1 earnings call.
“We expect to be there between 500-600 stores for the year [FY24],” Reddy added.
In the first quarter of the current fiscal, Apollo opened a net of 43 new stores taking the total number of outlets to 5,573 as of June 2023.
Currently, 20 percent of its overall pharmacies are yet to reach breakeven. Reddy said it may take a quarter or two more for these pharmacies to achieve breakeven.
The omnichannel pharmacy business revenue grew to ₹2,246 crore in Q1 FY24, compared to ₹1,808 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Of which, online business grew by 59 per cent year-on-year in Q1 FY24 while offline grew by 21 per cent.
Meanwhile, shares of Apollo Hospitals closed flat at ₹4,847 on NSE on Friday.
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