Reliance Retail Q4 pre-tax profit rises to Rs 3,705 crore; FY22 gross revenue touches nearly Rs 2 lakh crore

Reliance Retail Ltd on Friday posted a 2.43 per cent rise in pre-tax profit at Rs 3,705 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2022 and its gross revenue for the full fiscal jumped to nearly Rs 2 lakh crore.

The retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) saw its EBITDA cross Rs 12,000 crore in the last financial year.

In a statement, RIL said Reliance Retail added 1.5 lakh new jobs in FY22, taking the total employee count to over 3.61 lakh.

“EBITDA for the quarter recorded at Rs 3,705 crore, up 2.4 per cent Y-o-Y. However, EBITDA before investment income grew 16.3 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 3,584 crore led by robust performance in Fashion & Lifestyle and Grocery consumption baskets,” RIL said in a statement.

It had posted a pre-tax profit or EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation) of Rs 3,617 crore in the January-March quarter a year ago.

“Reliance Retail delivered its best-ever quarterly revenues even surpassing the festive quarter performance despite the challenges posed by the spread of Omicron wave and coming out from the festive quarter,” the statement said.

The headwinds posed by the COVID situation in January were offset by the robust growth in February and March as the business leveraged festive events and early setting of summer season, it added.

The net profit in the latest March quarter fell 4.8 per cent to Rs 2,139 crore compared to the year-ago period.

For the fiscal ended March 2022, Reliance Retail’s pre-tax profit was up 26.47 per cent at Rs 12,381 crore. It had reported an EBITDA of Rs 9,789 crore for 2020-21.

Its gross revenue was at Rs 1,99,704 crore in the last financial year. The figure is 26.69 per cent higher than Rs 1,57,629 crore in the year-ago period.

The growth for the year FY22 was “driven by broad based growth across all consumption baskets. This is despite COVID restrictions in place during the year with 87 per cent of the stores operational and 81 per cent footfalls recorded at stores as compared to pre-COVID levels,” the statement said.

Reliance Retail’s revenue from operations during the quarter was at Rs 50,834 crore, up 23.09 per cent as against Rs 41,296 crore of the corresponding period last fiscal.

Gross revenue, which includes the value of sales and services, was up 23.27 per cent to Rs 58,017 crore in the three months ended March 2022. In the year-ago period, the same stood at Rs 47,064 crore.

During the March quarter, Reliance Retail continued to add more stores and invest in network and infrastructure expansion.

“The business continued to bolster its store network and strengthen its supply chain capabilities. It opened 793 stores and added 3.1 million sq ft of warehousing and fulfillment space during the quarter,” it said.

As on March 31, 2022, Reliance Retail was operating on 41.6 million sq ft, with the total count of stores at 15,196.

“I am pleased to report that our retail business has crossed the 15,000 store benchmark,” RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D Ambani said.

During the quarter, Reliance Retai had taken around 950 retail stores from Kishore Biyani-led Future Group. The stores included those of Big Bazzar, Central, FBB and Easy Day.

On April 23, RIL said its Rs 24,713-crore deal to acquire Future Group’s assets cannot be implemented after secured creditors of the Kishore Biyani-led companies voted against it.

In the latest March quarter, Reliance Retail saw its business across all digital commerce platform more than double in terms of daily orders on a year-on-year basis, helped by stronger product portfolio and attractive offers.

“Alongside in new commerce, the business continued to partner with new merchants across geographies and consumption baskets. The merchant partner base grew 3x over last year,” it said.