Despite a downturn in the Indian economy and slowdown in consumption, Reliance Retail, the retail arm of Reliance Industries, posted a strong show in second quarter earnings.

The retail initiative has recorded a revenue of Rs 41,202 crore versus Rs 32,436 crore, compared annually, an increase of 27 percent. EBIT has shot up 63.3 percent with a reading of Rs 2,035 crore compared to Rs 1,244 crore year on year.

Reliance Retail has also added 337 stores in the second quarter. The total store count now stands at 10,901.

“Continuing growth trends in our retail business is heartening. Guided by our obsession to provide the best value for our customers, Reliance Retail delivered robust performance with record quarterly revenues and EBITDA," said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries.

Trends Small Town

During the quarter, Trends Small Town also crossed 100 stores, within a year after its launch. Reliance Retail opened 200th SMART Store, having accelerated the pace of expansion with 100 stores being opened in the last 15 months itself.

In grocery, Reliance Retail’s Fresh, SMART and Market stores witnessed strong growth backed by new store expansion and sales growth of 14 percent, driven by healthy volume growth across categories particularly in fruits and vegetables, staples and dairy. A record 43 stores were opened during the quarter helping expand the reach to newer geographies.

"The business continues to seize the large market opportunity in the country through expanding its presence – covering the breadth of consumption baskets of grocery, consumer electronics and fashion and lifestyle across geographies. With 337 store openings in the quarter, the spread of 10,901 stores with an area of 24.5 million square feet covers all corners of the country with the network reaching nearly 6,700 towns. The gains of modern retail are being brought to the real ‘Bharat’ as more than 2/3rd of stores are operated in Tier II, Tier III and Tier IV towns," RIL said in its earnings announcement.

Kirana stores

Reliance Industries is getting ready to create the world's largest ‘New Commerce’ platform that would be a hybrid online-to-offline e-commerce platform connecting as many as 30 million kirana or neighbourhood stores. It has already added over 2.5 million kiranas to its network and is looking at another 50,000 stores as delivery and collection points for its ecommerce venture.

First Published:Oct 18, 2019 7:59 PM IST