Even though the retail giants are reporting positive numbers, the retail sector is yet to recover from COVID

Retail giants ITC Ltd and Hindustan Unilever have recently revealed their Q1 FY22 numbers, and it seems promising. Even though the numbers are good, it, however, did not reward the share prices. When compared to the previous year’s numbers, HUL has managed to increase its profits by 9.5 percent (1,881 crores). Retail giant ITC has taken a huge leap and has reported a 28.6 percent rise in standalone profit (3,013.5 crores) for q1 of 2021. In the corresponding year of the previous cycle, ITC had reported Rs 2,342 crore as standalone profit.

Even though June month was severely affected by the second wave of COVID, both the retail giants managed to deliver good numbers in profit. Only a handful of companies have managed to show profits in this q1, and there are more than 50 percent of retailers who are yet to reach the pre-pandemic level in terms of profit. Data from RAI suggests that the profits of June month fell severely, and it showed that sales were down by 50 percent when compared to 2019 June. CEO of RAI, Kumar Rajagopalan, has stated that retail businesses are finding it very difficult to bounce back, and pan-Indian retail sales came down by 50 percent.