Early last month, Rite Aid (RAD) announced a partnership with Instacart to streamline delivery of essential pharmacy and health-related items to customers from over 2,400 locations across the United States. Rite Aid posted its quarterly earnings on June 25, and showed beats on both ends driven by front-end strength, but Instacart’s partnership is not likely to be a sole accelerant for Rite Aid, if at all.

Rite Aid’s earnings, although showing significant comp increases as well as earnings and revenue beats, were not too spectacular once breaking down the numbers. Rite Aid saw revenues rise 12.2% YoY up to over $6 billion, yet net loss barely inched anywhere, up to a loss of $72.7 million from $99.3 million. So even with an unexpected boost to revenues, which have been flat for 9 of the past 10 quarters, EBITDA was lower, and net loss barely benefitted. If Rite Aid did not incur that $30 million negative impact, adjusted net loss would have been near $30 million, as opposed to $7 million in the year-ago period. But again, this quarter faced a unique challenge, and one that Rite Aid had navigated through well; looking into this report too deep won’t necessarily help to see the bigger picture.

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