Reliance Jio’s standalone Q3 net profit rises 12.2% to ₹5,208 crore

• Jio's revenue from operations increased 10.3% to ₹25,368 crore in the third quarter.
• At the end of Q2 FY24, Jio’s subscriber market share was at 40.4%.
  

India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio on Friday posted a 12.2% rise in its net profit for the December quarter to ₹5,208 crore. The net profit stood at ₹4,638 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to a filing. Jio's revenue from operations increased 10.3% to ₹25,368 crore in the third quarter against ₹22,998 crore in the year-ago period.

The street was expecting Reliance Jio Platforms to clock a growth of 2.6-3% in its operating income (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) and revenue growth of 3% sequentially and 11% year on year.

Most analysts expected RJIL to report flat ARPU (average revenue per user). In its preview, Morgan Stanley said: “For RJIL, we expect EBITDA growth to be led by good growth in subscribers while ARPU could remain flat QoQ. We have assumed revenue growth to be led by incremental subscriber additions of 10.6 million with ARPU seeing a slight uptick to ₹182.1 (vs ₹181.7 in F2Q24).”

Reliance Jio has been increasing wireless subscriber market share quarter on quarter at a steady clip. At the end of the second quarter of FY24, its subscriber market share was at 40.4% while that of Airtel was at 30.8%.

In the preceding quarter, Reliance Jio Platforms’s consolidated second quarter net profit rose 3.9% sequentially to ₹5,297 crore from ₹5,098 crore in the June quarter. Its revenue from operations went up by 2.9% to ₹26,895 crore as compared to ₹26,115 crore in the first quarter of FY24. It also added 11.1 million subscribers during the quarter.

Its earnings before interest depreciation tax and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 3% QoQ to ₹13,528 crore. Its EBITDA margin also went up by one basis point sequentially to 50.3% in the second quarter. Operating income rose 12.6% year-on-year, led by revenue increase and an 80 bps jump in margins. Depreciation increased due to higher network utilisation and incremental addition to gross block.

“Strong subscriber growth across mobility and wireline services and scale up of digital services platform drove JPL consolidated revenue and EBITDA growth,” the company said in its press release.

Its average revenue per user (ARPU) widened to ₹181.7 from ₹180.5 in Q1. This is driven by better subscriber mix across mobility and wireline partially offset by the start of 5G services, the company said.


(With inputs from PTI)