Jio Platforms (JPL), which runs India's largest mobile network operator Reliance Jio, saw its net profit rise 12.53 per cent year-on-year to Rs 5,098 crore in the first quarter of FY24, results announced by the company on Friday showed. Its net profit had risen 15.8 per cent in the previous quarter.
The holding company for Jio and other digital businesses of the Reliance group witnessed its revenue from operations grow 11.2 per cent YoY to Rs 26,115 crore in Q1FY24, down from 14.4 per cent in the previous quarter. Operating revenue growth was driven by subscriber gains in the connectivity business and scale-up of digital services, the company said.
Overall, Jio Platforms gained 9.2 million mobile subscribers in the June quarter. This was the third consecutive quarter of growth for the company, after subscribers declined for three consecutive quarters. The company had earlier blamed SIM consolidation for the decline in its customer base.
The average revenue per user (ARPU) during Q1 stood at Rs 180.5, registering a 2.8 per cent change annually. In Q4FY23, the ARPU stood at Rs 178.8. The latest ARPU growth was led by a better subscriber mix. The ramp-up of the 5G network coverage also resulted in increased consumer engagement and data consumption, and in return helped lift the ARPU, the company said.
“5G adoption and Fiber to the Home (FTTH) ramp-up drive strong 28.3 per cent YoY growth in data usage as monthly data traffic on the Jio network crossed 11 exabytes during Q1FY24… Jio has deployed over 115,000 sites with 690,000 5G cells covering more than 90 per cent of census towns and is leading in terms of both network availability and customer experience as evaluated by third-party technology and consumer research companies,” the company stated.
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Sustained subscriber growth across mobility and wireline services led to revenue and Ebitda growth for the connectivity business. In addition, growth in digital services platforms with newer services like Managed Video Broadcast and Cloud solutions drives JPL’s consolidated revenue growth, it said.
“Jio’s wide range of quality offerings at affordable price points has enabled strong growth in subscriber base, which reflects in the financial performance of the digital services business. The accelerated roll-out of Jio’s True 5G services is propelling the nation’s digital transformation at an unprecedented pace. Jio is on track to complete pan India 5G rollout before December 2023,” Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.
In Q1FY24, Jio launched the Jio Bharat V2 phone priced at Rs 999, six years after it first unveiled a 4G-enabled feature phone. JioBharat is the lowest-priced made-in-India internet-enabled phone with affordable and competitive monthly service plans. It targets 250 million feature phone users across the country. The JioBharat platform is ready for scale-up with successful initial trial of 1 million devices.