Reliance Retail Q2 net profit grows 36% as pandemic effect wanes

• India’s largest retailer said that the operating environment is at par with pre-Covid levels.
• “Our retail business delivered record performance with strong revival in footfalls, store additions and digital integration,” said Mukesh Ambani, CMD of RIL.
• Early onset of festivities and key promotional events drove positive consumer sentiments, the company said.
• JioMart on WhatsApp brought in 37% of orders from customers who had not shopped on JioMart before.

Reliance Retail’s second quarter net profit grew 36% to ₹2,305 crore from ₹1,695 crore in the same quarter last year. This segment’s revenue grew 42.8% to ₹64,936 crore from ₹45,450 crore in the same quarter last year.

India’s largest retailer said that the operating environment is at par with pre-Covid levels as the pandemic impact has ‘waned’.

“Our retail business delivered record performance with strong revival in footfalls, store
additions and digital integration. Reliance Retail continues to provide a compelling proposition of great shopping experience and superior value across consumption baskets and price points,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, in a press release.

Early onset of festivities and key promotional events drove positive consumer sentiments, said the company whose EBITDA for the quarter went up by 51%.

Its EBITDA margin from operations also expanded to 7.4% in the September quarter as compared to 6.1% in the same period last year. The company attributed it to favorable mix, positive operating leverage and operational efficiencies.

The company’s retail space went up 20% quarter-on-quarter, taking its total store count to 16,617 stores spread across 54.5 million square feet.

“Reliance Retail is the only Indian retailer with more than 50 million square feet of retail space under operation. The business continued to invest in bolstering its infrastructure capabilities by expanding over 5.4 million square feet of warehouse space,” the company said.

JioMart on WhatsApp brought in 37% orders from ‘new’ customers


The daily orders for its digital commerce business went up by 53% year-on-year, with a 2x growth in merchant base. JioMart’s ‘Tyohar Ready Sale’ resulted in 2.5x growth in traffic and 3x app installations, it said.

“The business launched JioMart on WhatsApp native app during the quarter, a novel and disruptive initiative that brings the simplicity of instant chat service to the online shopping experience to millions of consumers. An impressive 37% of orders received from this platform are from new customers who had not shopped on JioMart before,” the company said.

Its August ‘Digital India Sale’ was the best ever, the company said, adding that attractive offers and new product launches aided it. Mobile phones, TVs and washing machines did particularly well with 30% year-on-year growth.

As consumers refreshed their wardrobe, its fashion and lifestyle business also recorded a strong quarter it said without providing data. However, it added that offline business in this category saw its best quarter ever with double-digit growth thanks to many festivals like Onam, Ganesh Chathurthi, Navratri and Pujo.

“During the quarter, the business introduced three new store concepts. ‘Azorte’, a tech-aided premium fashion and lifestyle store format; ‘Centro’, a fashion & lifestyle departmental store format and ‘Fashion Factory’, a format that offers value deals across brands to serve discerning customers,” the company said.