The competitive domestic telecom market is prompting leader Reliance Jio to innovate at an unprecedented scale. Nearly half of Jio’s patent applications till date came in FY25 alone, Reliance Industries’ latest annual report released Thursday said.
RIL’s digital services unit Jio Platforms submitted 1,654 patent applications during the year. This is 32% higher than last year.
And when compared with the total cumulative filing of 3,341 till date, FY25 constitutes almost 50%. RIL’s FY25 annual report reveals that 154 patents were granted during the year, taking the total number of patents granted to the company to 485.
Reliance Retail, on the other hand, stepped up investments in FY25, ploughing in Rs 33,696 crore, up 37.5% from FY24, when Rs 24,506 crore was put in mainly into infrastructure development and expansion of its business.
Reliance Retail opened 2,659 new stores in FY25, but shut nearly 2,200 stores, implying that net additions were nearly 500 stores in a year marked by recalibration. Total number of stores at the end of FY25 stood at 19,340, the largest store footprint for any retailer in the country. The registered customer base crossed 349 million.
Jio’s Innovation Engine: A Record Year for Patent Filings
While RIL has not provided an update on a possible listing of its retail business, analysts expect it to happen in the next two years. Telecom may happen earlier, sector experts said.
Reliance Retail’s revenue from operations grew 6.6% y-o-y to Rs 2.91 lakh crore for the year. Earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) increased 8.6% y-o-y to Rs 25,094 crore, while Ebitda margin increased by 10 basis points y-o-y to 8.6%.
Sustainable Growth: Jio’s Green Ambitions and Efficiency
Jio’s research and development efforts, meanwhile, are concentrated in key strategic areas including 5G and beyond, cloud-native platforms, AI/ML models, blockchain, network virtualisation, edge computing, and digital commerce.
Several of these technologies are developed and deployed at scale across Jio’s telecom and platform businesses, giving the company both operational leverage and long-term monetisation opportunities, RIL said.
Alongside its technology bets, Jio also pushed forward on sustainability. The company has committed to meeting 100% of its energy needs through green sources by 2030. This timeline is 5 years ahead of parent RIL’s 2035 timeline to achieve net-zero ambition. It is implementing energy-efficient network practices and using next-generation technologies that lower the power consumed per GB of data transmitted.
The report added that in FY25, Jio reduced its power consumption per GB by 21% y-o-y, driven by a higher share of 5G traffic and more efficient infrastructure. Jio’s power consumption per GB is now significantly lower than global benchmarks, positioning it as one of the most energy-efficient telecom networks in the world, it said.