(Reuters) - Indian courier delivery platform Blue Dart Express reported a drop in second-quarter profit on Monday as a rise in expenses offset strong freight volumes.

The company's consolidated net profit was 628.4 million rupees ($7.5 million) for the quarter ended Sept. 30, down 14% from a year ago.

Its revenue from operations climbed 9.4% to 14.48 billion rupees, while total expenses jumped 11.4%.

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KEY CONTEXT

Logistics companies in India have been struggling with persistently high expenses and tough competition, especially from the logistics arms of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.

However, these companies have signalled a recovery in freight volumes on the back of a pickup in economic activity.

Moreover, analysts have said Blue Dart's volume growth has been boosted by the addition of new freighters to its network.

PEER COMPARISON

Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

months)

RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div

TDA growth (%) growth rating* analyst price yield

(%) s target** (%)

Blue Dart 41.55 18.85 14.25 35.60 Hold 5 0.99 0.31

Express Ltd

Delhivery Ltd 84.79 32.76 17.07 1628.78 Buy 20 0.69 NA

Container 31.94 19.29 14.12 14.47 Buy 7 0.88 1.38

Corporation of

India Ltd

Mahindra 44.93 8.60 14.86 NULL Sell 11 0.94 0.60

Logistics Ltd

* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

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

JULY TO SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 84.3660 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon and Manvi Pant in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Shreya Biswas)