Analyst's Diary: Is Trent out of fashion?

In the fickle world of fashion, few brands stay in trend for long. But Trent, the Tata Group's retail showstopper, managed to effortlessly strut through the last decade. Its stores sprouted. Sales leaped at a blistering pace. And investors rewarded the stock handsomely—until recently. A 28 per cent year-on-year (YoY) revenue growth in the latest quarter (Q4 FY25) should have turned some heads. Instead, the market turned its back. The stock dropped 15 per cent in a day. Something is clearly amiss. Is Trent's growth in all the right places? On the surface, Trent's figures still dazzle. Zudio—the budget fashion chain that has quietly conquered every mall, high street, and roadside corner alike—continues to drive expansion with Westside humming along. Trent has now crossed the 1,000-store milestone in India across the two chains combined. But if you scratch beneath the surface, the polish starts to fade. While the number of stores has mushroomed, same-store sales growth (SSSG), the clearest signal of consumer loyalty, has dropped sharply from 56 per cent in FY22 to a paltry 10 per cent in FY24 as the post-pandemic spending spree lost steam. Trent's growth now, in fact, is propelled by store openings ra