One of India’s more prominent retail groups returned to the black in the September quarter.

Shoppers Stop owns hypermarkets, Crosswords bookstores, Timezone entertainment arcades and several joint venture branded retail chains including Mac cosmetics and Mothercare. It has reported a profit of Rs.378 million (US$615,500) last quarter as against post-tax loss of Rs.100.1 million in the June quarter and Rs.318 million in the September 2013 quarter.

“Things have taken a turn for the better at Shoppers Stop Ltd,” commented Pallavi Pengonda, a financial blogger on Livemint.com.

“For long, subsidiary HyperCity’s weak performance and lacklustre like-to-like sales growth had kept sentiment muted for the stock. But Shoppers Stop’s September quarter financial results are better on many counts.”

There are 72 Shoppers Stop department stores in 33 Indian cities. Sales in that division rose 7.2 per cent on a like for like basis.

HyperCity has turned from loss to profit, due to improvement in “rightsizing” stores, fine tuning of the product mix with a higher share of fashion merchandise and cost control initiatives.

Govind Shrikhande, managing director, Shoppers Stop, said in a statement that while consumer sentiment in India has improved, consumption has not.

“Eventually, when gross domestic product growth starts improving, you will see both, sentiments and consumption become better. That should take another three to four quarters from now.”