Reliance Retail Q4 Results: Revenue Drops 1.2% Sequentially

Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd.’s fourth quarter net profit rose marginally, but revenue fell due to a high base and festive sales in the previous quarter.

Net profit of India's biggest retailer increased 2.5% over the previous year to Rs 3,545 crore in the quarter ended March, according to an exchange filing by its parent company, Reliance Industries Ltd.

• Revenue from operations fell 1.2% to Rs 78,622 crore

• Ebitda down 1.8% to Rs 6,510 crore.

• Margin contracted to 8.5% from 8.6%.

In FY25, Reliance Retail expanded its store network with 500 net additions, taking the total store count to 19,340 with an area of 77.4 million square feet. As part of its rationalisation plan to boost margins ahead of IPO, Reliance Retail closed loss-making 2,159 stores this fiscal, more than double than in FY24. The total number of transactions rose 1.6% quarter-on-quarter to 361 million in Q4.

The retailer didn't provide data on store footfalls this quarter.

For the full fiscal, Reliance Retail's net profit rose 11.3% to Rs 12,388 crore. Net revenue for the year stood at Rs 2.9 lakh crore, up 6.5% year-on-year.

The company's chief financial officer, Dinesh Taluja, attributed the single-digit growth in net revenue for the year to a weak first half. "But the second half — both the last quarter and the current quarter — was good."

The consumer brands division generated sales of Rs 11,450 crore in FY25, its second year of operations. Over 60% of this comes from general trade. Key brands Campa and Independence gained double-digit market share. The distribution network has been scaled to cover over 1 million retail outlets through a network of 3,200-plus distributors. The company has begun tapping overseas markets like the Middle East. It plans to set up a distribution in select international markets to further expand its exports.

Digital commerce and new commerce contributed 18% of total revenue.

The fashion and lifestyle business turned around well in the second half, led by the wedding season and festivals. Existing Trends stores are being upgraded to Trends 3.0, which is a digitally enabled fashion format. The store experience has also been improved by optimising the option count and implementing weekly refreshes with new option launches, it said.

During the year, Reliance launched Shein across the app, website, and shop-in-shop on AJIO, with over 12,000 options now live on the platform.

Grocery was "the star performer", with industry leading performance in stores and premium formats, Taluja said during a post-earnings briefing.

"There was a growing demand for niche and premium products as consumers looked for aspirational choices," the company said. "Products like premium coffee and healthy snacks witnessed 30% year-on-year growth."

The B2B business, Metro, had steady growth led by an uptick in staples, processed foods, confectionery, and beverages categories. Targeted initiatives in the HoReCa segment drove a 37% year-on-year increase in sales.

Operations under quick hyper local deliveries under JioMart have been scaled to over 4,000 pin codes across 2,100 stores, the company said. "This is a much wider range than any other quick commerce player," Taluja said. "We have re-pivoted our model to under 30-mins delivery, and we are seeing very strong traction with a 2.4 times quarter-on-quarter growth in daily exit orders. We expect this number to scale up in the coming year."

Taluja added that the company is starting to proactively market this quick commerce proposition. "No hidden charges, quick delivery and no delivery fees continue to work very well, resonate well with consumers."

The CFO added that the quick commerce model is being executed profitably, with robust unit economics. "Our big advantage in this segment compared to others is leveraging our existing infrastructure instead of setting up a dedicated store network. My fixed costs are already being covered by our store sales, so it's only an incremental cost that we incur to deliver these orders."