Reliance Retail, the country’s largest organised retailer, is rapidly scaling up its quick commerce business, positioning hyperlocal delivery at the core of its retail strategy. The move comes as hyperlocal orders surge over fourfold year-on-year in Q4, emerging as the fastest-growing segment in its retail business.
“The most significant shift this year was structural. Hyper-local commerce orders grew more than four-fold year-on-year. We operate India’s widest hyper-local delivery network across grocery, electronics and fashion,” Isha Ambani, executive director, Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL), the holding company of Reliance Retail, said.
The company’s hyperlocal network now spans over 3,100 stores, across 1,200 cities and 5,100 pincodes, Ambani said. At a broader level though, Reliance Retail is looking to repurpose its entire footprint of over 20,000 stores into last-mile fulfilment hubs as it seeks to captilise on the momentum it is seeing in its quick commerce business, company officials said.
The retailer is integrating physical stores with digital ordering to deliver groceries, electronics, and fashion products within hours, competing directly with q-comm rivals such as Blinkit and Zepto, which have built their models around dense networks of dark stores.
The scale is already translating into operating momentum: Reliance Retail clocked 585 million transactions in Q4FY26, up 62% year-on-year, thanks to hyper-local commerce, taking the total annual transaction tally to 1.93 billion. Its registered customer base rose to 387 million at the end of Q4, a growth of 10.9% y-o-y, again helped in part by q-commerce.
What do analysts say?
Analysts say this hybrid model gives Reliance a distinct advantage in both scale and cost. By using stores as fulfilment centres, the company reduces the need for fresh infrastructure investments while improving inventory turns and delivery timelines. The addition of 1,564 stores during FY26 further strengthens this network, even as the focus shifts toward increasing order frequency rather than expanding retail space alone.
Financially, the retail arm posted steady topline growth in Q4 and FY26. Gross revenue for FY26 rose 11.8% year-on-year to Rs 3.70 lakh crore, while Ebitda increased 7.9% to Rs 27,033 crore. Profit after tax grew 11.7% to Rs 13,838 crore. In the March quarter, gross revenue stood at Rs 98,232 crore, up 12% y-o-y, with net profit at Rs 3,563 crore, flat versus last year.
Operating margins have reflected the cost of scaling up its q-comm business. Ebitda margins for FY26 slipped to 8.3% from 8.6% a year earlier, while the quarterly margin eased to 7.9% from 8.5%, as investments in supply chain, technology, and last-mile logistics intensified.
As quick commerce expands into higher-value categories, competition is set to intensify, experts said. Reliance’s scale and integrated model offer an edge, but sustaining profitability while delivering speed will remain critical as the retail battle shifts from store expansion to how quickly products reach consumers’ doorsteps.