RAI-Innoviti SANKET Report Tracks Retail Recovery in July
The latest RAI-Innoviti SANKET report indicates that India’s retail sector experienced a moderation in like-for-like business growth through the first quarter before recovering in July, with smaller cities and UPI-led transactions emerging as key drivers.
Produced by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) in partnership with Innoviti Technologies, the report analyses more than 50 million data points across 2,800+ cities to track retail trends by category, geography and payment method.
Retail Growth Recovers in July
Like-for-like retail growth, which compares sales at the same stores with the corresponding period a year earlier, declined from 9.4% in April to 7.8% in May and 4.7% in June. Growth subsequently recovered to 6.8% in July, marking the first month-on-month improvement of the quarter.
The same-store approach provides a clearer picture of underlying consumer demand by removing the impact of newly opened stores.
Jewellery Sees Volatility While Key Categories Remain Positive
Jewellery recorded the widest fluctuations during the period, with growth reaching 14.2% in April, supported by Akshaya Tritiya demand, before easing to 4.6% in May. Growth then stabilised at 6.6% in June and 6.4% in July.
Grocery growth remained around 7% for two months before declining to 4.3% in June, coinciding with elevated food inflation. The category recovered to 7.5% in July as monsoon conditions helped ease supply pressures.
Consumer electronics and fashion remained in positive territory throughout the period, with both categories showing improvement in July.
Smaller Cities Continue to Gain Ground
The report shows that all four regions experienced moderation during Q1 before recovering in July, while the South recorded the strongest performance across the four months.
The West experienced the largest movement, recording the sharpest Q1 slowdown followed by the strongest July rebound.
Smaller cities also continued to outperform metros during much of the quarter. The growth advantage of Tier 3 cities over Tier 1 cities increased from 0.7 percentage points in April to 2.4 points in June, before narrowing to 1.9 points in July as metro demand recovered.
According to the report, this could indicate that the weakness observed in metropolitan markets during Q1 was more event-driven than structural.
UPI Continues to Outpace Card Payments
Payment behaviour remains another major trend identified by the report. UPI transaction growth consistently outpaced card transactions, increasing 22% in April compared with 4.6% for cards.
By June, UPI growth had moderated to 12%, while card growth stood at 0.7%. Both payment methods accelerated in July, with UPI growing 14% and cards increasing 3.2%.
Card transactions remain particularly relevant to jewellery, where higher-value purchases continue to favour card payments. In grocery, meanwhile, UPI has become the dominant payment method.
Retail Trends Point to a Broader Shift
Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India, said, “The RAI-Innoviti SANKET report shows like-for-like business growth data — real, per-store demand, not growth that’s just new stores opening. That distinction matters, because it’s the only way to tell if Indian retail is actually gaining strength or just gaining square footage.”
He added that the data points to a retail sector that weakened through the summer before rebounding, with significant differences across categories, cities and payment methods.
Rajeev Agrawal, CEO, Innoviti Technologies, said the report provides insights into what consumers are purchasing, where they are spending and how they are making payments. He highlighted three key trends: robust discretionary spending in lifestyle and consumer electronics, deeper economic growth in smaller cities, and the continued shift towards UPI across both smaller and higher-value transactions.
The report combines data from consenting businesses, publicly reported information and primary surveys, using AI to correlate retail trends with broader economic developments.
