Reliance Jio net profit rises 15.5% to Rs 3,489 crore in December quarter

Jio Platforms, which provides digital and telecom services, had posted a net profit of Rs 3,020 crore in the previous quarter

Reliance Jio posted 15.5 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 3,489 crore in December-end quarter on a sequential basis.

While the company saw 5.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in revenue, net customer additions remained subdued for second consecutive quarter partly impacted by farmer agitations in Punjab.

In the third quarter, Jio Platforms reported operating revenue of Rs 19,475 crore, compared to Rs 18,496 crore in the September quarter. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) rose 6.4 per cent to Rs 8,483 crore. Margins grew by 46 basis points to 43.6 per cent.

Jio Plaforms said it achieved  a milestone this quarter with annualised operating revenue run-rate of $10 billion.

The average revenue per user rose 4 per cent to Rs 151 led by increase in data consumption and better customer engagement. 

Customer additions, however, remained slow. Jio’s total customer count increased to 410.8 million, an increase of 5.2 million customers. Customer additions came lower than analyst estimates and the company blamed 1.63 per cent churn in customers to Covid-19 impact and “recent malicious motivated campaigns against the group in select geographies”.

“Net additions (of subscribers) were 5.2 million. It was on account of Covid and local issues that we faced, but those are now getting better,” Reliance Jio head of strategy Anshuman Thakur said, adding the upcoming spectrum auction will help the firm in building up capacity and maintaining the networks.

During the quarter, average data consumption per user was 12.9 GB and average voice consumption was 796 minutes per user per month. “India is today among the leaders driving the Digital Revolution in the world. In order to maintain this lead, Jio will continue to accelerate the rollout of its digital platforms and indigenously developed next generation 5G stack and make it affordable and available everywhere. Jio's 5G service will be a testimony to the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Jio is determined to make India 2G-mukt, thereby empowering every Indian to have an affordable.smartphone and be a part of digital and data revolution,” Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

Ambani had earlier indicated at rolling out 5G services in second half of 2021 and said policy steps were necessary for the early rollout of the services. “Indigenously developed 5G Radio integrated with Jio’s 5G Core Network and 5G Smartphones have achieved over the air throughputs in excess of 1 Gbps. In-house Massive MIMO and indoor 5G small cell are under advanced stages of development,” the company said.

It also announced the completion of all the private equity and strategic investments. “During the quarter Jio completed the Google transaction post requisite regulatory approvals for an investment of Rs 33,737 crore into JPL for 7.73 per cent stake. With this the entire amount of Rs 152,056 crore has been received by the company,” it said.