Dear Shareholders,
Let me now talk about – the retail business.I am proud to say that Reliance Retail has well and truly brought the Retail Revolution to India.
(i) We are able to deliver the highest value to our customers because we have the widest geographical footprint; nationwide supply chain; technology expertise; design & product development; and the largest assortment of goods and
services.
(ii) Reliance Retail provides us with a hyper-growth platform, as the Indian consumer demands products and services which are at par with the best in the world. It is the best proxy for the consumption story of India.
(iii) We achieved a significant milestone with our turnover crossing 1,30,000 crore in the FY18-19. We have achieved this milestone faster than any other retail company in the world.Our
EBITDA margins are among the best globally.
(iv) The Retail business has grown phenomenally, registering a 7-fold increase in revenue and a 14-fold increase in profit in the last six years. Our relentless focus on operating discipline has resulted in a 3-fold rise in per-store productivity in the last 5 years.
(v) We serve more than 1 lakh customers every hour, a feat no Indian retailer has been able to achieve. Last year, we delighted over 15 crore unique customers.
We registered over 500 million footfalls last year, becoming India's preferred shopping destination.
(vi) We have expanded our footprint at a rate of 8 stores per day, opening a total of 3,000 new stores this year, higher than any other retailer globally. Our spread of stores covers all corners of the country, with presence in nearly 7,000 towns and cities. Over 2/3rd of our 10,415 stores are in Tier II, Tier III and Tier IV towns.
These towns are connected with a modern supply chain capable of delivering products from distribution centers spread across the country. The unique customer insights can be leveraged to grow into a much bigger business in the next five years.
Here are a few more signposts of our spectacular achievements in Reliance Retail.
Reliance Digital is the undisputed leader in India in consumer electronics retailing.
We sell more phones, laptops, refrigerators, TVs, and ACs than any other retailer in the country.
We sold a TV every 24 seconds last year, and we sold a phone every 2 seconds.
In Grocery, we are India's largest modern trade retailer.
Reliance Retail sells nearly half of the fresh fruits and vegetables sold by the entire modern retail ecosystem in India.
We sold more than 6.4 lakh tonnes of groceries during the year.
In the fashion category, Reliance Trends is the undisputed leader.
Reliance Trends sold over four lakh garments every day last year.
With the acquisition of Hamleys,
Reliance Retail has transformed into a global retailer with a presence in 18 countries.
We are proud to own a global category leader in children's premium toys that we can take to other parts of the world and we will be the first Indian company to do so. And we continue to be the preferred partner for several international marquee brands in India.
Today, we are the only Indian retailer to be ranked in the Global 100 top retailers.
Over the next 5 years, our aim is to be amongst the world's top 20 retailers.
New Initiatives ( Connecting 3 Cr Kirana Shops)
Now I want to update you on Reliance's New Commerce initiative that I spoke about last year. New Commerce is a massive new business opportunity of USD 700 billion. However, for Reliance, it is the greatest opportunity to promote inclusive growth and shared wealth at the bottom of India's commerce and retail pyramid.
The main purpose of
New Commerce is to completely transform the unorganized retail market, which accounts for
90% of India's retail industry. The 3 crore merchants and
Kirana shop owners, who generate direct and indirect livelihoods for over 20 crore people, form the backbone of India's commerce ecosystem.
These highly energetic and self-motivated entrepreneurs have suffered in recent years because of their inability to invest in technology and infrastructure.
In the true Reliance ethos, we are working towards enriching and empowering them with our end-to-end digital and physical distribution stack.
For this, we are deploying blockchain, IoT, AI and other new technologies on a pan-India basis. This tech-enabled partnership will link producers, traders, small merchants, consumer brands and consumers.
Our merchant Point of Sale (POS) Solution – Jio Prime Partner POS – is integral to our plan to create an ecosystem around small merchants.
This user-friendly digital platform is designed for inventory management, customer relationship management, financial services, and other services.
This will modernize even the smallest neighborhood
Kirana shop to become a future-ready digitized store.
During the last year, we have made significant progress in developing and testing our merchant technology platforms. Our beta trials with thousands of merchants across multiple locations in the country established the premise of New
Commerce with a significant increase in sales and improvement in margins for the participating merchants.
We are now getting ready to roll out the platform at a larger scale.
Reliance's New Commerce platform thus represents the Digital Symbiosis of Big and Small Enterprises. I believe that the Small must not only survive but also thrive in New India.