Euroapotheca, which manages Eurovaistinė, sold investments in Poland and is growing e-commerce sales
The Euroapotheca Group sold its investments in Poland in 2021 and is recording rapid growth in e-commerce channels for the second year in a row. The Group, which manages Eurovaistinė in Lithuania and pharmacy chains in Latvia, Estonia and Sweden, grew its revenue by 3.9% last year and reached a turnover of EUR 812 million.
Paulius Mencas, CEO of Euroapotheca, says that in 2021, the entire Group had focus on operational efficiency, the development of e-commerce, and the refinement of its product range in order to maintain market share and increase revenue.
“The strongest revenue growth was recorded in Latvia, where Euroaptieka’s turnover increased by 11.5%, Eurovaistinė’s revenue in Lithuania grew by 1.2%, and in Sweden and Estonia we saw a decrease in revenue (0.9% in Sweden and 25.5% in Estonia), which we associate with the growth of e-commerce channels. E-commerce sales in the entire Group grew by almost 35%,” says Mencas.
E-commerce grew in all Baltic countries, and new services expanded in Lithuanian pharmacies
Paulius Mencas notes that the largest growth for the second year in a row was shown by the purchase of medicines and other medical supplies via electronic channels that began to grow at the beginning of the pandemic:
“One of the key areas in which Euroapotheca focused in 2021, was development of e-commerce functionality and services. At the beginning of 2020, we saw strong growth in this industry, so it was important to create even more convenient systems for our customers, to offer a wider range,” says Mencas.
E-commerce revenue grew by 34.6% across the Group in 2021, with statistics showing that the first and fourth quarters of the year were the busiest, when extremely large outbreaks of COVID-19 virus were observed and quarantine restrictions were tightened.
Tomas Kibildis, the Head of Eurovaistinė in Lithuania, says that the focus in Lithuania has been on developing new services to meet the needs of customers:
“In recent years, we in Lithuania have focused on new services that reflected the changed needs of our customers, i.e. telephone consultations, vaccination offices, various tests. In addition, we are monitoring the changed habits of our customers, who are increasingly choosing a pharmacist for the first consultation,” says Kibildis.
Sold a pharmacy chain in Poland
In November 2021, the management of Euroapotheca signed a final share purchase and sale agreement with the Polish pharmacy chain DOZ S.A. on the sale of investments in Poland. Under that agreement, Euroapotheca sold its investments in a pharmacy chain operating in Poland. Following the transaction, companies operating in the Baltic and Swedish markets remained in the company’s portfolio from the end of 2021.
Compared to the previous year, the net profit of the whole Group decreased from EUR 47 million to EUR 11 million in 2021. According to Euroapotheca’s management, this change in net profit was mainly affected by one-off accounting events in the consolidated financial statements for 2021 and 2020 related to the valuation of investments and changes in accounting standards.