Ask anything about Indian retail.

By volume, Reliance Retail leads a pack that includes DMart, Trent and V-Mart, which helped top retailers open 2,182 stores in FY26, a three-year high, largely in tier-2 and tier-3 towns. DMart itself has slowed, with 18 openings in H1FY27 against 17 a year earlier, which CLSA calls muted.

Three prints stand out. Nestle India grew sales 20.5% and profit 36% as material costs eased to 43.1% of sales, a margin story rather than a volume one. Senco Gold's 19% same-store growth and Titan's 25% consumer growth, with jewellery up 21%, show premium discretionary demand holding firm. DMart is the cautionary read: income rose almost 18% but profit only 8.5%.

Digital-first brands are moving into stores across fashion, beauty, food and accessories. FNP runs 350+ stores and SNITCH 130+, while Underneat opens its first at Gurugram's Galleria. Renée Cosmetics now draws 65% of sales offline, Miraggio plans 10+ owned stores, and CUNIN is building offline distribution. D2C brands took 28% of H1 2026 retail leasing, up from 23%.

The pilot to watch is Kalyan Jewellers' Akshaya Thanga Maligai, a controlled Tamil Nadu launch aimed at regional jewellery consumers under its House of Regional Brands strategy. It matters because it tests whether a national jeweller can win local loyalty with a distinct regional storefront rather than its flagship banner.

Foreign capital is landing selectively in growth-stage consumer brands, while larger flows are heading out. Verlinvest plans $200-300M in India over 2-3 years, with $40-60M cheques, and Zepto's parent raised Rs 11,684 crore in 2024 even as PE deal value fell about 45%.

Indian retailers are splitting their bets between small and large formats. Neighbourhood stores of 500 to 10,000 sq ft and high streets are favoured for dense catchments, repeat visits and lower occupancy risk, and small formats now make up a large share of organised retail. IKEA is going compact, putting ₹20,000 crore into smaller mall-format city stores. Large malls are not fading, though.