Puuilo Q1'25 preview: Growth driven by new stores

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 06/09/2025 at 07:48 am EEST 

Puuilo publishes its Q1’25 result on Tuesday at around 8:30 am EEST. We expect revenue to have continued its strong growth, mainly driven by new stores. We also expect earnings to have improved, but relative profitability improvement is unlikely to be seen. We expect the company to reiterate its guidance, the midpoint of which assumes strong growth and profitability in line with the comparison period. Puuilo’s Finnish-language Q1 earnings call can be followed on InderesTV at 11:30 am EEST.

Growth generated by new stores

We expect Puuilo's Q1 revenue to increase by 13% to 85 MEUR. The consensus forecast expects 85 MEUR in revenue. In our view, growth will be mainly driven by the company's store network, which has expanded by seven stores, while like-for-like revenue growth is likely to be weak. This is due to the soft consumption environment and the resulting decline in the average purchase in euros. Nevertheless, customer numbers in comparable stores should continue growing slightly, which would indicate a continuation of the company's market share gains.

Extra expenses from concentrated store openings

We expect Puuilo's adjusted EBITA to increase by around 9% to 9.1 MEUR. This corresponds to 10.6% of revenue, which highlights the seasonally weak period. The consensus expects a better performance than we (EBIT 9.6 MEUR). We expect the gross margin to have improved slightly from the comparison period to 36.8% (Q1’24: 36.6%). This is explained by the favorable development and increased share of products with good profitability, i.e., those with a low price point. In our view, the faster growth of the company's fixed cost structure compared to revenue is explained by new store openings concentrated at the beginning of the year and wage inflation. We anticipate that financing costs have increased due to higher interest-bearing debt and IFRS16 interest expenses inflated by a larger store network. Overall, we expect Q1 adjusted EPS to be EUR 0.07 (consensus EUR 0.8). In connection with the report, we revised our depreciation and financing cost forecasts marginally, which increased our 2025 EPS forecast by one percent.

The guidance is likely to be repeated

Puuilo's guidance for fiscal year 2025, issued at the end of March, expects revenue to be 425-455 MEUR and adjusted  EBITA of 70-80 MEUR. The midpoint of the guidance implies 15% growth and profitability of 17%. The guidance is likely to be repeated, as both our (revenue 441 MEUR and EBITA 75.9 MEUR) and the consensus median (revenue 438 MEUR and EBIT* 75.5 MEUR) expectations are close to the midpoints of the guidance ranges, and in our view there have been no dramatic changes in the operating environment in either direction. Considering the expected improvement in the operating environment towards the end of the year and the resulting growth in like-for-like sales, it would be nice to hear positive comments about the recovery of consumers' willingness to buy. However, there have been no clear concrete signals of this yet based on market statistics.

* EBITA forecast not available