NEW DELHI: Reliance Retail today reported an over three-fold jump in its pre-tax profit at Rs 1,392 crore for the second quarter ended September 2018 helped by store expansion and strong value proposition.
The retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had posted a PBDIT (profit before depreciation, interest and tax) of Rs 444 crore in the July-September period a year-ago.
Revenue from RIL's organised retail segment during the quarter under review grew over two-fold to Rs 32,436 crore as against Rs 14,646 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal.
Commenting on the results, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said: "Our commitment to create consumer value is gathering momentum, with the robust scale-up of India centric consumer facing businesses.
"The financial performance of both Retail and Jio reflects the benefits of scale, technology and operational efficiencies. Retail business EBITDA has grown three- fold on Y-o-Y basis whereas Reliance Jio EBITDA has grown nearly 2.5 times," he added.
Reliance Retail operates 9,146 stores across the country and has presence in over 5,800 towns and cities. It operated in 19.5 million sq ft during the quarter under review.
According to the company, "Accelerated store expansion, strong value proposition and focus on customer experience across all consumption baskets has resulted in this robust growth."
Reliance Retail received over 1 crore footfalls during the big sale period of August 11 to 15, 2018.
"Deep analytics of the shopping behaviours and continued customer connect helped in drawing customers to shop at Reliance Retail stores during this period," the company said.
Reliance Retail's grocery stores led by Reliance Fresh and Smart witnessed strong growth backed by new store expansion and volume growth in existing stores.
"15 new SMART stores and 5 new Fresh stores were opened during the quarter. The stores saw robust growth in Staples, Home & Personal Care and General Merchandise categories," it said.
Fresh and Smart together now operate 523 stores across 100 cities.
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