Reliance Jio on Thursday beat estimates on the net profit front by posting a sequential growth of 72.7% at Rs 2,331 crore during the January-March quarter. However, the company’s revenue growth and Ebitda missed estimates put out by some brokerages. Jio’s revenues during the quarter was up 6.2% at Rs 14,835 crore compared to the preceding quarter while Ebitda was up 10.7% at Rs 6,201 crore.

Brokerage firm, Kotak Institutional Equities, had for instance estimated the revenue growth in the range of 11% and Ebitda by 20%.

Jio, which had witnessed a decline in its average realisation per user (Arpu) in the first two quarters of the fiscal due to tariff cuts, was able to check the downward slide in the December quarter which it maintained with a tariff hike in December, which saw Arpu during the January-March quarter improve to Rs 130.6. Though this was higher than Rs 128 during the preceding quarter, it was seen as below expectations. The muted growth despite the tariff hike in December could be due to higher number of JioPhone users who are low-paying customers as well as validity extension for them during March due to the lockdown.

From the third quarter, interconnect charge (IUC) had started adding to the company’s earnings and it has now become a net gainer with the quarter seeing its full impact.

Anshuman Thakur, head (planning and strategy), Reliance Jio, said, “The impact of tariff increase taken in December is gradually playing out and will take some more time as customers who were on earlier plans have not yet fully recharged and now that they are recharging the revenue recognition takes place over a period of time and will increase Arpus further”.

On other operating metrics, Jio continues to perform on expected lines with its industry leading numbers. Its data traffic at 12,840 million GB was up 6% compared to the preceding quarter. Data usage per customer, per month, however was flattish at 11.3 GB against 11.1 GB in the preceding quarter.

Thakur said that in the period post lockdown the company is seeing a significant increase in the data consumption, which is up more than 50% post lockdown. However, the company said that capacity management remains a priority as traffic surged to 170 million GB per day.

Jio’s voice volume at 876,340 million minutes registered an increase of 6% compared to the preceding quarter. Usage per customer at 771 minutes, per month registered a rise of 1.4% sequentially.

Jio’s monthly churn remains the lowest in the industry at 0.57% per month. The company continued its strong subscriber growth trend with net addition of 17.5 million subscribers during the quarter. Its gross adds stood at 23.9 million and total subscriber base at 387.5 million.

Commenting on the performance, Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries, said, “Jio is embarking on the next leg of growth with a path-defining partnership with one of the world’s largest digital companies, Facebook. We are together determined to make India a truly digital society with best-in-class connectivity network complemented with disruptive digital technology platforms for entertainment, commerce, communication, finance, education and health harnessing world’s best tech capabilities. Our focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector”.