Reliance Retail pre-tax profit falls 13.77% to Rs 2,009 cr in September quarter

Reliance Retail on Friday reported a 13.77 per cent fall in its pre-tax profit to Rs 2,009 crore for the second quarter ended September 30.

The retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had posted a pre-tax profit, or Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation), of Rs 2,330 crore in the July-September quarter a year ago.

Revenue from the organised retail segment of RIL during the quarter was at Rs 39,199 crore, down 13.77 per cent as against Rs 41,223 crore in the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

The company has reported Rs 31,633 crore revenue from the organised retail segment in the April-June quarter this fiscal.

"Overall, Reliance Retail's 2Q FY21 performance reflects resilience and customer preferences. The business is focused on restoring the momentum to pre-pandemic levels as operating curbs and limitations are relaxed," said RIL in an earning statement.

Decisive actions taken by the business to adapt and strengthen its operating capabilities for the post-Covid-19 world position it well to maintain its consistent industry-leading performance, it added.

"Partially open and fully open stores were up to 85 per cent in the second quarter of 2020-21. Footfalls, while recovering, are still lower than pre-Covid-19 levels, particularly across fashion and lifestyle and mall stores," it said.

Reliance continued to expand its retail operation during the quarter and has a net addition of 125 stores in its network after the restrictions were lifted out.

"With operating curbs being lifted progressively, store expansion resumed with 232 stores being opened during the quarter, taking the current footprint of the business to 11,931 stores, spread over 29.7 million sq ft of retail space," it said.

During the quarter, Reliance Retail entered the pharmaceutical category.

While its consumer electronics segment delivered a strong performance with revenues at 2x over the previous quarter, and notably double-digit growth over the previous year despite lower footfalls.

"Growth was broad-based across categories, with laptops and productivity devices more than doubling, and high-end TVs, air care and appliances delivering strong growth," it said.

The company added that it moved swiftly to make an entire network of digital stores omni-enabled and this led to a significant uptick in orders over last quarter.

While the fashion and lifestyle categories delivered strong sequential recovery with revenues up three times over the previous quarter, as more stores being allowed to operate during July-September.

Its growth momentum in grocery was sustained. This quarter saw the continued trend of lower footfall being more than offset by higher bill values.

"JioMart continues to scale up rapidly with a consistent increase in daily customer orders," it said.