Reliance Jio Q1 results: Profit jumps 3 folds to Rs 2\,520 crore; ARPU at Rs 140.3
Mumbai: Reliance Jio Infocomm nearly tripled its net profit on year in the April-June period – its eleventh profitable quarter in a row - helped by the delayed impact of tariff hikes taken last December, decent customer additions and lower finance costs after reducing debt.
For the quarter ended June, Jio posted profit of Rs 2,520 crore compared with Rs 891 crore a year ago, and Rs 2,331 crore in the preceding quarter. Analysts had estimated Jio’s in net profit in the June quarter at around Rs 2,600 crore.
Quarterly revenue rose 34% on year to Rs 16,557 crore for the country’s newest and now largest telecom operator, which is playing a key role in helping parent Reliance Industries transform itself from an oil-and-retail conglomerate to a technology platform company.
The company added net 9.9 million customers despite the impact of Covid to end the quarter with 398.3 million users, the company said in a statement Thursday.
“Jio started with a vision of connecting everything by building a robust and secure wireless and digital network and extending the benefits of digital connectivity to everyone in India. Thirteen investors, which include the largest technology companies and investors globally, now share a common vision with us,” Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Limited said.
He was referring to Jio Platforms, the parent of Reliance Jio and RIL’s digital and telecom unit, raising Rs 1,56,056 crore from 13 investors, including the likes of Facebook, Google, Intel, Qualcomm, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala and PIF. Reliance Industries, post completion of these investments, would hold 66.48% stake in Jio Platforms, on a fully diluted basis.
“Of the total investment, Jio Platforms Limited has already received Rs 1,15,694 crore as subscription amount from ten investors. Rs 22,981 crore will be retained at Jio Platforms to drive future growth,” the company said.
Operationally, Reliance Jio’s average revenue per user rose to Rs 140.3 from Rs 130.6 in the January-March quarter, helped mainly by the tariff hikes the telco took in December, and the customer additions, which outperformed rival Bharti Airtel.
It added that the national lockdown drove average wireless data consumption per user per month to 12.1 GB from 11.3 GB in the previous quarter. But average voice consumption fell to 756 minutes per user per month from 771 minutes. Monthly churn rate for wireless subscribers at only 0.46% during the quarter.
Jio is the second among the trio of private players to announce its results. Bharti Airtel on Wednesday posted a loss of Rs 15,933 crore loss on the back of provisions for statutory dues. But its key parameters for India mobile services continued to outgun Jio, with ARPU of Rs 157, data usage per customer at 16.3 GB and voice minutes of usage of 994 minutes.