Trent's Q2 net profit nearly triples to ₹228 crore on robust revenue

The company's EBITDA and profit surged on revenue growth.

Its emerging categories including beauty and personal care, innerwear and footwear continued to gain traction with customers. Emerging categories now contribute to over 19% of the firm's standalone revenues.

The Star business, consisting of 65 stores, continued to witness improved customer traction with growing sales densities, the company said. The business registered operating revenue growth of 30% in Q2FY24 versus the corresponding previous period.

"Almost, the entirety of this growth was from like-for-like stores and the volume growth was also strong and comparable. The business experienced an all-round operating performance improvement, driven by fresh, general merchandise and apparel categories. Given the increasingly positive economics, we are convinced that we have a differentiated and scalable model to pursue. Consequently, we see Star as a key and additional growth engine in our portfolio," it said.

The Tata Group firm's portfolio included 223 Westside, 411 Zudio and 27 stores across other lifestyle concepts. During the quarter, Trent added 6 Westside and 27 Zudio stores across 19 cities, as of September 30, 2023.

"Our lifestyle offerings across concepts, categories and channels witnessed strong momentum in Q2FY24 despite challenging market conditions. We continue to see growing relevance for our offerings, resilience in our business model choices and attractiveness of our differentiated platform," said Noel N Tata, Chairman, Trent Ltd.

"We will expand and deepen our store presence with the aim of being ever more proximate and convenient to customers reinforcing our brand promise," Tata said.

"The way Zudio has worked out for them as a value retailer, I do not think it has been that successful with some of the other value retailers especially the other listed players per se. And at a time when consumer demand is going down there is stress because of inflation on overall consumption pattern to report (Q2FY24: consolidated net profit of ₹289.6 crore) impressive numbers," said Elixir Equities Director Dipan Mehta.