Ali Hasan
Reliance Jio has posted a net profit of 15.5% to Rs 3,489 crores in the 3rd quarter of 2020-2021. While the company saw 5.3% quarter-on-quarter growth in revenue, net customer additions remained subdued for 2nd consecutive quarter partly impacted by farmer agitations in Punjab.
Reliance Jio has more than 41 crores users
The telecom company recorded a net profit of Rs 2,844 crore during the September quarter. In the quarter-over-quarter terms, Jio’s profit was Rs 1,350 crore. During the December quarter of FY21, the average revenue per user (ARPU) rose to Rs 151 per subscriber per month from Rs 145 in the previous quarter. Reliance Jio’s total customer base was 410.8 million as on December 31, 2020.
In the 3rd quarter, Jio Platforms reported operating revenue of Rs 19,475 crore, compared to Rs 18,496 crore in the September quarter. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) rose 6.4% to Rs 8,483 crore. Margins grew by 46 basis points to 43.6%. EBITDA margin came at 37.1%.
On other operating metrics, Jio performed well but average data growth per user at 12.9 GB though higher by 7.5% than preceding quarter’s 12 GB is still far from rival Bharti Airtel’s level of 16 GB in the July-September quarter. This could be due to high proportion of JioPhone users who are essentially feature phone users who are not heavy data users.
Data traffic at 1,58,60,000 million MB was up 10% compared to the preceding quarter. Jio’s voice volume at 9,74,960 minutes registered an increase of nearly 5% against the preceding quarter. Usage per customer at 796 minutes per month registered an increase of nearly 3% sequentially.
Commenting on the performance, Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries, said, “India is today among the leaders driving the Digital Revolution in the world. In order to maintain this lead, Jio will continue to accelerate the roll-out of its digital platforms and indigenously developed next generation 5G stack and make it affordable and available everywhere.
Jio’s 5G service will be a testimony to the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Jio is determined to make India 2G-mukt, thereby empowering every Indian to have an affordable smartphone and be a part of digital and data revolution. We invite and encourage all stakeholders to work together to make world-class digital services available to every Indian consumer at the most affordable prices”.
The company said its JioMeet platform crossed 1.5 crore users during the quarter and is now evolving as a complete platform with solutions for different segments like large enterprises, healthcare industry, educational and government institutions.
“Jio’s bundled broadband offering for SMBs (small and medium businesses) has had an encouraging response. A wide scale commercial deployment will see Jio offering unique solutions across connectivity, communication, conferencing, productivity, marketing, infotainment and devices,” the release said, “The addressable market will be significantly expanded with these digital solutions and ubiquitous fiber presence.”
