Reliance Retail, the retail business of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), increased sales by 52 percent year on year (YoY) to Rs 58,569 crore in the fiscal quarter ending June 2022. (Q1). In the first quarter of FY22, the company’s revenue was Rs 38,563 crore. Retail topline growth was approximately 1% sequentially.

Reliance Retail’s net profit for the quarter was Rs 2,061 crore, a 114.2 percent increase over the previous year’s figure of Rs 962 crore.

The good performance was aided in part by a low base from previous year, when operations were hampered by the second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic. However, the June quarter was the first normal quarter after two years of interruption due to Covid, which aided Reliance Retail’s business in the period.

“Since the commencement of COVID two years ago, Q1 has been a completely regular quarter.” During this time, all of our stores have been completely operational. This also resulted in a resurgence of footfall across the country across all of our formats and geographies. “Our footfalls are 119 percent higher than pre-Covid levels, resulting in almost 175 million walk-ins across all our formats,” said Gaurav Jain, head of Reliance Retail, while digitally addressing a post-results conference.

Consumer sentiments, according to Jain, remain high, albeit cautious on discretionary spending due to inflationary fears.

The retail division reported operating EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) of Rs 3,897 crore, up 180.4 percent year on year, with a 350 basis point rise in margin at 7.6 percent, compared to 4.1 percent in the previous year’s equivalent period.

“This was driven by stronger contributions from fashion and lifestyle and consumer electronics, as well as growing operating leverage and solid like-for-like growth throughout the consumption basket,” the business explained.