Reliance Retail on Friday posted a 45% jump in net profit and 23% increase in revenue for January-March 2021, as strong demand for fashion and lifestyle, grocery and consumer electronics helped the company record what it called a “landmark quarter”.Reliance retail reported a net profit of Rs 2,247 crore on revenue of Rs 47,064 crore for the fiscal fourth quarter.For the fiscal year ended March 31, it posted a nearly flat net profit at Rs 5,481 crore and a 3.3% fall in revenue at Rs 157,629 crore. The past fiscal year was a challenging one for retailers such as Reliance as consumers avoided malls and high street, before demand picked up in latter half of the year.“It was an unprecedented year because of the challenging operating context,” Dinesh Thapar, group chief financial officer of Reliance Retail, said on an earnings call. “Only 80% of our stores were open and the footfalls we saw were 65% of pre-Covid levels. The first quarter was pretty much washed out and second quarter (was) heavily constrained by the situation and only in the third and fourth quarters that we started to see some operating conditions.”Despite the pandemic, Reliance Retail opened 1,456 stores in the year, taking the total number of outlets to more than 12,000, covering over 33 million sq ft. Last year, Reliance Retail had completed the “largest fundraise exercise in the sector”, raising Rs 47,265 crore from global private equity funds, valuing the company at more than Rs 4.2 lakh crore.