RIL Q4 Results Highlights: Net profit up 19%; new energy investments to drive next growth wave, says CFO

RIL reported a net profit at Rs 19,299 crore for the March quarter, up 19 percent from the year-ago period.

Revenue from operations came in at Rs 2.13 lakh crore, registering a rise of 2.8 percent on-year.

RetailBusiness

Reliance Retail delivered robust performance with another quarter of strong revenue growth and profit performance. The bottom line grew by 12.9 percent YoY to Rs 2,415 crore while topline stood at Rs 69,288 crore, up 19.4 percent YoY. Store footfalls was at 219 million-highest ever, up from 201 million in Q3FY23.

O2C

Revenue for O2C business fell by 11.8 percent YoY to Rs 1,28,633 crore. Exports dropped 0.4 percent to Rs 78,851 crore. EBITDA, meanwhile, improved 14.4 percent to Rs 16,293 crore.

Oil & Gas

Oil & Gas revenue more than doubled to Rs 4,556 crore as compared to Q4FY22 mainly on account of higher price realisation and 13 percent increase in KGD6 gas production.

Media

RIL media business reported a loss of Rs 35 crore for the quarter. Revenue fell 8.5 percent to Rs 1,484 crore.

According to Reliance Industries, the KGD6 gas production is likely to increase to 30 million standard cubic meters of gas per day in FY24, with commissioning of MJ field.

The global gas price is likely to remain volatile with demand uncertainties and higher EU storage, it said.

In the medium term, the gas market environment in India remains "positive", the company added.

Jio Platforms (JPL), holding company of the telecom and digital services business of RIL, reported a23.5 percent YoY growth in net profitto Rs19,124 crore for FY23.Revenue from operations stood at Rs 98,099 crore, up20.2 percent. However, the stellar revenues of Rs 25,465 crore in the March quarter meant that JPL's annualized revenue rate (ARR) stands over Rs 1 lakh crore.

"The emphasis remains on disciplined capital allocation to support growth initiatives. We believe that it will be largely funded through internal aaccruals,"RIL CFOVenkatachari Srikanth said.

"New energy investments to drive energy transition and next wave of earnings growth," Reliance Industries' chief financial officerVenkatachari Srikanth said.

Earlier, RIL chief Mukesh Ambani said implementation of newenergy giga factories at Jamnagar is making significant progress. "This puts us on track to achieve our goals of transitioning to cleaner energy and enabling sustainable growth," he stated.

"In last 10 years, we have allocated capital to consumer-centric business which has transformed the earning mix and positioned us as a consumer and tech company," RIL CFO Venkatachari Srikanth

Depreciation increased by 43.2% YoY to Rs 11,456 crore due to expanded asset base across all the businesses and higher network utilization in Digital Services business, RIL said.

RIL said its revenue from oil andgas segment doubled Y-o-Y on account of higher price realisations. But this was partially offset by decrease in revenue from O2C business on account of sharp decrease in crude oil prices and lower price realisation on downstream products.

“Reliance Retail continues on the path of registering industry leading growth year after year at a scale unmatched in India…Our focus on customer-centricity backed by investments in technology, innovation and new business segments have helped us create operational excellence and steer the transformation of India’s retail sector,"Reliance Retail Ventures Executive Director Isha Ambani said.

"5G has led to a significant improvement in customer experience, reflected in the higher engagement levels among Jio users. Jio remains committed to build a robust digital society with tailormade technology platforms which will drive sustained growth in earning and value for all stakeholders,"Reliance Jio Infocomm Chairman Akash Ambani said.