Indonesia’s Blibli earns $241m in revenue for Q1, cuts EBITDA loss by 30% YoY

Blibli’s delivery fleet / Photo credit: Blibli

Global Digital Niaga, the holding company of Indonesian tech majors Blibli and Tiket, recorded US$241.2 million in net revenues for the first quarter of 2024, a 2% year-on-year growth.

Meanwhile, its EBITDA losses improved 30% year over year to US$35.1 million during the quarter. Its losses from operations similarly improved by 29% to US$38.4 million.

The company attributed the growth to its focus on categories with higher margins and faster turnover.

“In the first quarter of this year, general consumer spending was soft,” said Kusumo Martanto, CEO and co-founder of Blibli. “Our B2C navigated it through categories selective growth strategy, including further expansion of our physical customer touchpoints to strengthen our omnichannel approach.”

Part of the growth came from Tiket, its online travel agent (OTA) business, which benefited from a surge during Ramadan, a period in which Indonesians typically return to their hometowns. However, the boost was slightly offset by Blibli’s optimization initiatives for its B2C retail segment.

Take rates also rose to 6.3% from 4.9% in Q1 2023. This helped Blibli’s gross profit before discounts climb 29% year on year. Total operating costs as a share of rotal payment volume dropped from 8.1% in Q1 2023 to 7.7% in Q1 2024 – a result of various cost-cutting strategies, the company noted.

Founded in 2010, Blibli offers an ecommerce platform complemented by physical stores. It launched six more offline electronics stores in Q1 2024, raising the total to 172, while also running 63 locations of the Ranch Market premium supermarket chain.

Blibli ventured into the OTA space in 2017 by acquiring Tiket before adding fresh produce and groceries through its 2021 Ranch Market buy. It went public on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in late 2022.

As of yesterday’s market close, Blibli shares traded at 472 rupiah (US$0.03), substantially higher than fellow IDX-listed tech giants GoTo and Bukalapak.

Currency converted from rupiah to US dollar: US$1 = 16,255 rupiah.

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