Mumbai: Caratlane’s Q1’22 revenue stood at Rs 157 crores, a 272% YoY growth despite having only 41% of store operational days in the quarter. The International Business of the brand increased 9X with the online presence only. The online sales contributed around 50% of revenue. Caratlane opened 4 new stores in Q1, taking the total store count to 121 in 45 cities. The PBT loss for Q1 was restricted to Rs. 9 crores as compared to Rs.19 crores in Q1 last year.
Mithun Sacheti, Founder and Managing Director of CaratLane commented, “Consumers across the world have been embracing the digital medium for accessing products and services at an unprecedented pace. CaratLane, which is a pioneer in India in providing access to beautiful jewellery to our customers through the online channel, has been a beneficiary of this megatrend and has been delivering industry-leading performance since the start of the pandemic. An online search for our brand doubled during the quarter, influencing the retail transactions, as well as aiding online sales which contributed to about 50% of the overall revenue. In Q1’22, we delivered revenue of INR 157 crores, a 272% YoY growth, despite having only 41% store operational days in the quarter for our 121 physical stores.”
Mithun further added, “As another offshoot of this digital mega-trend, it is heartening to see that our international foray in mid-2019 is growing at a healthy rate. We have tapped into a large demand of NRI customers, across USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and other markets, who are looking to buy beautiful Indian Jewellery but don’t have access to those designs locally. CaratLane is also accessing these new markets through the gifting segment by enabling the customers to gift jewellery to friends & family across the globe. We have leveraged our learnings of profitably selling through our online channel and digitally influencing the customers to succeed in the new markets. The CaratLane team is relentlessly focussed on continuing to innovate to tap the large consumer segments unaddressed by traditional jewellers while enhancing customer’s buying experience.”
The second wave of the pandemic across the country created a temporary setback for the business due to the shutdown of the stores. Store operational days were 64%, 11% and 53% for the months of April, May, and June respectively. As the second wave started receding from May, the sales started improving with a strong recovery by the end of the quarter. The revenue contribution was approximately 39%, 22% and 39% for the April, May, and June months respectively.
The CaratLane brand has been becoming stronger and the brand searches during the quarter doubled, compared to last year. The increasing digital influence is also visible in the online-influenced retail transactions, which stood at 60%, compared to 50% last year.
During Akshaya Tritiya, the focus was on new design launches – mainly plain gold designs and affordable occasion wear. We also launched our new signature collection Kanak – inspired by the golden wheat fields. This was supported with a high traffic plan and an aggressive promotion that helped achieve a 71% higher revenue than last year.
International business continues to grow from strength to strength, as countries opened restrictions on the back of aggressive vaccination. The international business had its best quarter so far, – also a ~9x growth over the same quarter last year.
Shaya, the company’s silver brand continued to see strong growth during the quarter. Our kid’s category, which has collections like The Power Puff Girls and Peppa Pig also saw immense traction in the quarter.
