Zomato, Nyka and Robu are very different businesses.
I sincerely doubt that Zomato or Nyka can increase their OPM, as the moment they do it, customers will leave them. There is no customer stickiness (Nykaa may have some brand value).
Robu is different as it is a specialised e-commerce player. They have customer stickiness. Further, the number of SKUs are increasing at a very fast pace. in last 2 years it has gone up from 12K to 75K.
Their real competition is Digikey. Worldwide Digikey topline is more than $ 5 billion, and they have millions of SKUs. Digikey India has also started operations in India, and recently I read somewhere that Currently, Digi- key serves more than 5,000 unique customer sites in India with annual revenue of more than $36,000,000 (USD). As far as margins are concerned, with scaling margins are likely to improve in this business.
The real issue is competition with Digikey India.
By that comparison Blink-It and Zepto are just grocery stores that sell stuff online, and Amazon is just an online Wal-mart. Redington is not growing as fast as Macfos and Redington deals in finished goods while Macfos deals mostly in parts. They are completely different businesses though as @rk1771 mentioned, there is competition of which we should be wary.
Of course, Redington cannot grow as fast as Macfos. It is at 1 L Cr in Revenue and has doubled in the last 5 years. Redington is not just distribution of Apple and other mobile devices.
They are the core and largest distributors and the backbone of the supply chain of electronics parts in India, including networking products and parts, components for small—and large-scale computing, servers, electronics accessories, and other products. That’s just part of their portfolio.
Coming to the larger point, my point was on competition and margins. I feel that 10% of the margins are unsustainable and will come down as they get competitors. It may not be Redington, for whom 1000 crores in revenue is spare change. Other players may already do electronics supply chain and have a 5- 10k business size, plus of Ofbusiness type players.
Rest I have no skin in this game.
The company is strategically increasing its inventory levels, reflected under expenses as “purchase of stock-in-trade.” This move indicates a deliberate investment toward long-term growth, which may temporarily impact short-term profitability. However, such investments are essential to sustain a high growth trajectory of 50–60% annually.
As the founder emphasized, they are building a business—not merely optimizing short-term financial metrics. During the recent conference call, an investor inquired about improving revenue per user (unit economics), seeking higher margins. The founder clarified that their current focus is on growing total revenue, which they plan to achieve by expanding their SKU base, particularly with small-ticket items.
Interestingly, I’ve come to realise that even on this platform, many investors seem to focus heavily on quarter-to-quarter performance (for short term trading buy before results and sell after it)—despite being experienced individuals above 40 and what not (many of these are also options traders btw), not just younger retail traders. My point is: unless we understand the intent behind someone’s post, it’s unfair to assume they are only driven by long-term goals.
Totally agreeing with @Divyanshu_Parganiha
Earnings call was pretty good. they have their focus on building a solid base… Numbers should follow i believe..
There’s a simple reason to your last point on investors being driven by short-term performance.
It’s extremely rare for a company to sustain 50-60% growth numbers over multiple years. And when you’re investing in such a company at high valuations, you don’t get to have any margin of safety. In those cases, if you wish to protect your capital, selling on tepid results is the only thing you can and must do. Otherwise you’d be stuck for a long time, just hoping to make your money back.
Whether one should call this behavior as nefarious or not, I really don’t know. This is a forum for discussion (not specifically long-term trading only) and people are entitled to their own opinions and capital allocation strategies.
DigiKey’s expanded India operation is a material threat, especially as it can now offer local billing, GST, and logistics—key pain points for Indian B2B customers. DigiKey’s scale, product range, and ability to invest in customer acquisition mean it can take market share away from MACFOS.
Anyone has any inputs like how real a threat this is? Does ROBU has some differentiation in the offering or exclusivity?
How has robu grown so good when mouser was already there with Aqtronics since 2009?
Just do google search, i don’t see digikey anywhere (maybe they (digikey) have offline stores in big metros) and is known only to heavy tech nerds who explicitly search for digikey only.
At least in B2C segment digikey is not here yet. Especially the amount of good reviews I have seen about robu in various platforms. Even if they have some fault in equipment or delivery they help customers (according to reviews i have read).
But if you wanna buy something then most likely you will most likely land on robu.in
Some raw google search results:
I have not searched for drone parts bcz robu.in is already on top for drone parts, I searched for less common components and robu is already on top 2 in most cases. Apart from this their custom battery pack, PCB prototyping, Lazer cutting, etc services looks very innovative to attract hobbyist and statup prototyping teams. Their custom battery pack service is already on top result on google search.
The company has come out with Q1 results, look a bit tepid. Topline has gone up to 60 crores from 57 crores, PAT 5 crores from 4 crores. At what rate is the company growing?
Optically, the results look weak.
In this quarter the company has served 114066 orders, with an average value of Rs. 5196. Multiplying these two gives you a topline of almost 60 crores, the declared topline in Q1. When we compare that to last year Q1, the company served 86734 orders, with an average order value of Rs. 4247. The turnover come out to be around 37 crores. The Q1- 2024-25 topline was 56 Crores. Last year the company received an one-time order, part of which was fulfilled in Q1-2025. It looks like that toplne was higher due to that order. If we ignore that order, it looks like the growth is intact, slightly above 50 percent.
Last year the company received a one time order of around 50 crores. Margins were slightly lower on that order. Part of that order was executed in Q1, and partly in Q2 2024-25. That figure in topline is making the growth figure appear tepid. Otherwise, on all other parameters, the results look good.
Q2 results will look more tepid optically as large part of that one time orders were fulfilled in Q2- 2024-25, and stock may correct. I think that will be good for long term investors.
The investor presentation has said that total SKU has reached almost 85K. In this quarter they have added around 14K SKUs. Have a look at the presentation, happy reading.
Macfos-Investor Presentation.pdf (2.2 MB)
Can anyone tell what was the purpose of preferential shares issued last year in May 2024 at Rs. 430 and what is the status of that utilisation?
Dis: Just watching and trying to understand the business.
PPT is must read.
AOV up by 30%
Number of orders up by 30%
Revenue YoY growth is low due to last year 1 off order which management clearly mentioned might not repeat.
last year Q1 if you multiple AOV*Number of orders it becomes 36cr. This is 60% YoY growth. Which is very good.
Interesting thing is most of the things in robu 2.0 are now in green so in motion. SKU growth is amazing and revenue results should follow.
A quick correction: I think the co mentioned the bulk order to be 71.3 Crs (not 50 Crs).
The way I look at these results is that the co needs to hit 270 Crs of (non-bulk) topline and nearly 25 Crs of PAT, in order to show 50% growth. That means, after this quarter, they’d have to hit 70 Crs of topline and 6.7 Crs of PAT every quarter. I think that would be tough, but I guess time will tell.
Discl: Tracking.
Though it is not possible to grow @ 50 pc infinitely, Macfos can grow at this rate for quite sometime for the following reasons-
- Their turnover is miniscule as compared to the market size- huge head room to grow.
- E-commerce is taking market share from brick and mortar shops in every area, and it true for electronics part too.
- Their SKUs shall keep on growing- they have 85K SKUs now. When this thread was started, total SKUs were 12K… Thus it is 7 times growth in last 2 years. Digikey has millions of SKUs, thus there is headroom in increasing SKUs. Increase in SKUs will result in growth.
- As electronics are becoming more important in life (we saw that in recent wars), they are in sweet spot.
- As number of SKUs increases, with scale the company will become more efficient as warehousing cost, delivery cost, advertisement and promotion cost etc. reduces on per unit basis. Thus, I am of the view that they can sustain margins or even increase that with scale.
I have read somewhere that Digikey works on 40 pc operating margin.
The company is in great space. As it is leading in this niche area, it can be a wealth generator for patient investors. Rest, nobody knows the future.