Loss-Making Dingdong (Cayman) Limited (NYSE:DDL) Expected To Breakeven In The Medium-Term
With the business potentially at an important milestone, we thought we'd take a closer look at Dingdong (Cayman) Limited's (NYSE:DDL) future prospects. Dingdong (Cayman) Limited operates an e-commerce company in China. The US$835m market-cap company announced a latest loss of CN¥814m on 31 December 2022 for its most recent financial year result. The most pressing concern for investors is Dingdong (Cayman)'s path to profitability – when will it breakeven? We've put together a brief outline of industry analyst expectations for the company, its year of breakeven and its implied growth rate.
Check out our latest analysis for Dingdong (Cayman)
Consensus from 8 of the American Consumer Retailing analysts is that Dingdong (Cayman) is on the verge of breakeven. They anticipate the company to incur a final loss in 2023, before generating positive profits of CN¥430m in 2024. Therefore, the company is expected to breakeven just over a year from today. How fast will the company have to grow each year in order to reach the breakeven point by 2024? Working backwards from analyst estimates, it turns out that they expect the company to grow 108% year-on-year, on average, which signals high confidence from analysts. Should the business grow at a slower rate, it will become profitable at a later date than expected.
Underlying developments driving Dingdong (Cayman)'s growth isn’t the focus of this broad overview, but, keep in mind that typically a high growth rate is not out of the ordinary, particularly when a company is in a period of investment.
Before we wrap up, there’s one issue worth mentioning. Dingdong (Cayman) currently has a debt-to-equity ratio of over 2x. Generally, the rule of thumb is debt shouldn’t exceed 40% of your equity, and the company has considerably exceeded this. A higher level of debt requires more stringent capital management which increases the risk in investing in the loss-making company.
Next Steps:
This article is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis on Dingdong (Cayman), so if you are interested in understanding the company at a deeper level, take a look at Dingdong (Cayman)'s company page on Simply Wall St. We've also put together a list of relevant factors you should look at:
Valuation: What is Dingdong (Cayman) worth today? Has the future growth potential already been factored into the price? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether Dingdong (Cayman) is currently mispriced by the market.
Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on Dingdong (Cayman)’s board and the CEO’s background.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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