WARSAW/GDANSK: Polish e-commerce platform Allegro is planning to pilot its own delivery lockers, its chief financial officer said on Thursday, after reporting third-quarter results and raising its full year profit guidance.
Polish media has speculated that Allegro plans to buy InPost, which has a network of parcel lockers where customers can collect their purchases from Allegro’s online service.
“We have identified as one of our tactical developments that we want to have the competence and the capabilities to roll out our own lockers,” CFO Jon Eastick told Reuters in an interview. He said no decision had been taken on what would happen after the pilot.
He declined to comment on the InPost speculation.
Allegro, which listed in Warsaw in October, said it was targeting an increase in gross merchandise value of slightly over 50% for the full year and of more than 20% for adjusted core profit.
Shares in Allegro were down 4.5% at 1004 GMT.
mBank analyst Pawel Szpigiel said the market may have been expecting more.
“The set of results are in line with expectations and … the revised guidance suggests Q4 EBITDA growth would not be as high as so far this year,” he said.
Eastick said a government decision to close most shops in shopping centres in November to curb the coronavirus had contributed to the company raising its guidance.
“Obviously similar to the second quarter we are seeing some extra demand coming through because we are the main place that the buyers can satisfy all their demands on things other than groceries,” he said.
But with shopping centres reopening in the run-up to Christmas, Eastick said the growth rate in December would not be quite as strong.
For the third quarter, adjusted core profit, without non-recurring IPO costs, was 408.5 million zlotys ($108.77 million), up 26.7% year-on-year.
($1 = 3.7557 zlotys)
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