Jan 27 (Reuters) - India's Mahindra Logistics swung to a quarterly profit for the first time since 2022, it reported on Tuesday, as demand for shipping increased during the festive season and its supply chain management segment turned a profit.

The Mumbai-based ‌company's consolidated net profit came at 32.5 million rupees ($354,551.90) during the quarter ended December 31, ​from a loss of 90.3 million rupees ($985,108.82) a year ago.

This is the ‍company's first quarterly profit since the third quarter ⁠of fiscal year ⁠2023. Its supply chain management is its biggest segment, contributing 94.4% to the topline.

Revenue rose ‌more than 19% to 18.98 billion rupees.

For ​further earnings highlights, [click here].

KEY CONTEXT

The Mahindra Group unit has been facing rising costs and tougher competition from domestic as ⁠well as international firms in ‍India's $342 billion ​logistics market, along with losses linked to its 2022 acquisition of express-cargo firm Rivigo.

However, in a pre-earnings note, Elara Capital analysts said ‍the firm would receive support in the third quarter from the addition of new warehouses and its core third-party logistics business.

They also expected B2B express volumes to improve and losses to narrow, helped by possible price hikes and better operating efficiency.

Although December does not fall ​within ‍India's main festive season, which started in mid-September, year-end holidays and discount events still provide logistics firms with a modest boost ​in demand.

Mahindra Logistics, Delhivery and Blue Dart are also facing growing pressure from Amazon ( AMZN ) and Walmart ( WMT ) -owned Flipkart, which are steadily expanding their in-house logistics operations.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation Estimates Analysts'

(next 12 (next 12 sentiment

months) months)

RIC PE EV/E Reve pro Mea No. Stock Div

BITD nue fit n of to yiel

A grow gro rat ana price d

th wth ing lys targe (%)

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Mahindra Blue Dart Delhivery VRL BUY

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** The ratio of the ​stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

OCTOBER-DECEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 91.6650 Indian rupees