Reliance Jio’s revenue during the quarter stood at Rs 6,147 crore.
Reliance Jio turned an impressive set of numbers for the July-September quarter which is otherwise seen as a weak period for mobile operators. The company, which started commercial operations from September 2016, on Friday for the first time released its full earnings and other operating metrics. As is known, Jio started charging customers for its services only from April 2017.
Reliance Jio’s revenue during the quarter stood at Rs 6,147 crore, which is quite impressive considering that it has only around 138 million subscribers. For perspective, Idea Cellular’s revenue during the first quarter (the company is still to announce its Q2 earnings) was Rs 8,167 crore with a subscriber base of 189 million.
The company posted a loss of Rs 270.5 crore during the period against a `21.3-crore loss in the preceding quarter. Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) stood at Rs 1,443 crore with margin pegged at 23.5%. The earnings before interest and tax came to Rs 261 crore.
On operating metrics, Jio is far ahead of peers like Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular. Its average revenue per user (Arpu) during the quarter was Rs 156.4, which is higher than the blended Arpu of Bharti Airtel (`154) and Idea Cellular (`141) during Q1.
Similarly, Jio’s data traffic was much higher than Bharti and Idea at 3,780 billion MB. During Q1, Bharti’s data traffic stood at 472 billion MB and Idea’s at 251 billion MB.
Jio clocked data usage per customer per month of 9,620 MB, which is higher than Bharti’s 2,611 MB and Idea’s 2,204 MB. On total voice traffic, Jio was lower than competitors at 248 billion minutes and the reason for this is that it has less number of subscribers than Bharti and Idea. However, when it comes to minutes of voice usage, it scores over Bharti and Idea at 626 minutes per user per month compared with Bharti’s 507 minutes and Idea’s 441 minutes.
Jio’s monthly churn is also lower at 1% against Bharti’s 3.8% and Idea’s 6.7%.
Jio said it added 15.3 million new users during the quarter, taking total subscribers to 138.6 million at the end of September.
“We are focused on providing multi-layered digital services on top of the basic connectivity service to optimally utilise our world-class infrastructure. The strong financial results of Jio demonstrates the robust business model of Jio and the significant efficiencies that the company has built through its investment in the latest 4G technology and right business strategy,” Reliance chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.
