Q1 results review: Retailers post their best-ever quarterly sales

The first quarter without any Covid-induced restrictions saw retailers witnessing their cash registers ringing. Despite offline sales picking up in the April-June quarter, e-commerce sales also continued to grow. 

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail (ABFRL), Page Industries, Bata, TCNS Clothing Company, Trent, and Reliance Retail all saw their revenue hit all-time highs in the first quarter of the financial year (Q1 FY23). 

“The traction was equal across metros, Tier-1, -2, -3 and -4 (cities),” VS Ganesh, managing director, Page Industries told investors after announcing its earnings on a conference call. Page Industries is the exclusive licensee of Jockey International for the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of the Jockey brand in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the UAE.

“Our strategy of introducing kidswear across exclusive womenswear stores has shown good results and we are confident of making inroads into this nascent and fast-growing segment. Today, Tier-2 and -3 centres are also becoming an important marketplace for us given the increased awareness of healthier lifestyle and availability of quality, functional innerwear and athleisure wear,” Ganesh said. During the quarter, the firm’s revenue stood at Rs 1,341.3 crore. 

ABFRL, which saw its revenue hit a high of Rs 2,875 crore in Q1, witnessed a sharp recovery in demand across categories and saw strong preference for its portfolio of brands, which led to a robust quarterly performance, it said in its press release. Aggressive store expansion, accelerated e-commerce and omni-channel play have been the key drivers of growth in the quarter, it said. 

During the quarter, its e-commerce sales witnessed a 56 per cent growth compared to the last year and its omnichannel network expanded to over 1,600 stores. Its fashion and lifestyle retail chain, Pantaloons, saw its revenue at an all-time high of Rs 1,027 crore. 

“After six quarters of strong resilience in Covid sales, this is the third quarter in succession that we delivered robust growth over pre-Covid levels, and we strongly believe this momentum will continue in the quarters to come,” Jagdish Bajaj, chief financial offier of ABFRL told investors after its results.

“There was the impact of casualisation, which significantly helped us. There are other factors also at play, including very strong consumer movement of back-to-office, physical offices.

Wedding season was also quite strong for us during the quarter,” said Vishak Kumar, chief executive officer of Madura Fashion and Lifestyle Division, which is a part of ABFRL. 

TCNS Clothing Company, which houses brands like W, Wishful, Aurelia and Elleven, said in its investor presentation that it matched its highest Q1 sales despite slower recovery in the category. In its conference call, Anant Daga, managing director of the company said, “We believe that with the onset of festive season and reopening of offices, the ethnic women’s fashion segment should also come back to full normalcy soon…We are excited to see significant sales spikes around regional festive occasions and we see this recovery further building on,” Daga added.

The country’s largest retailer, Reliance Retail also said it delivered its best-ever quarterly (gross) revenue at Rs 58,554 crore, up 51.9 per cent year-on-year, as the company said its business witnessed no operating disruptions in the quarter since the onset of Covid.