Reliance Retail on Friday reported a 66.81 per cent increase in pre-tax profit to Rs 2,322 crore for the second quarter ended September, helped by improvement in store productivity, better operating efficiencies and expansion in rural markets.
The retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had posted PBDIT (profit before depreciation, interest, and taxes) of Rs 1,392 crore in the July-September quarter a year ago.
Revenue during the quarter was up 27.02 per cent to Rs 41,202 crore as against Rs 32,436 crore in the corresponding period of the last fiscal.
"The revenue for the quarter surpassed the milestone of Rs 40,000 crore. To put the scale in perspective, this is higher than the annual revenue registered by the next largest retailer in the country," RIL said in a statement.
Reliance Retail delivered "resilient performance and sustained its strong track record" in the "backdrop of a slowing growth environment during the quarter", the company said.
According to RIL Joint CFO V Srikant, retail capex for July-September quarter was Rs 2,000 crore.
"Consumption slump is not witnessed by Reliance Retail," said Srikant, adding, "It is non-discretionary in nature and cannot be compared with auto industry."
During the quarter, Reliance Retail added 337 stores, taking the total store count to 10,901 stores with an area of 24.5 million square feet.
Commenting on the result, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said: "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."
More than two-thirds of its stores are operated in tier II, III and IV towns, Reliance Retail said.
During the quarter, Trends Small Town crossed 100 stores, within a year since its launch.
Reliance Retail's grocery stores -- Reliance Fresh, SMART and Reliance Market -- witnessed healthy volume growth.
"In Grocery, Reliance Retail's Fresh, SMART and Market stores witnessed strong growth backed by new store expansion and same store sales growth of 14 per cent, driven by healthy volume growth across categories particularly in Fruits & Vegetables, Stapes and Dairy," it said.
Reliance Retail opened the 200th SMART store and 100th store of its toy retailing arm Hamleys in the country.
"Almost half of the 200 SMART stores are in Tier 2 and smaller towns and have shown equally robust customer traction and sales throughput as the stores in Metro cities," it said.
Its consumer electronics retail arm Reliance Digital added 100 new stores during the quarter, taking the count to over 8,200 stores.
"In Consumer Electronics, Reliance Digital continues to maintain its leadership position while registering same store sales growth of 12 per cent in a challenging market environment," it said.
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