Apollo Hospitals will add 500-600 offline pharmacy stores across the country, as it is looking to close the current fiscal with ₹10,000 crore in revenues from its omnichannel pharmacy business.

The offline pharmacy distribution segment was earlier part of Apollo Healthcare Enterprises (hospital business). From March 16, 2022, the pharmacy distribution segment was transferred to Apollo Health Co Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of AHEL. Apollo HealthCo now includes offline pharmacy distribution, online pharmacy distribution, and digital healthcare platform Apollo 24/7.

In FY23, the combined pharmacy business reported a revenue of ₹8,238 crore, compared to ₹6,768 crore in FY22. The company added 1,012 stores in the previous fiscal after adding 411 stores in FY22.

“In Q1 FY24, we consciously slowed down because in Q4 last year we added about 380 stores. We want to give that space to stabilise those stores,” said Obul Reddy, CFO, pharmacy division, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, in the company’s Q1 earnings call.

“We expect to be there between 500-600 stores for the year [FY24],” Reddy added.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal, Apollo opened a net of 43 new stores, taking the total number of outlets to 5,573 as of June 2023.

Currently, 20 per cent of its overall pharmacies are yet to reach break-even. Reddy said it may take a quarter or two more for these pharmacies to achieve break-even.