Jio Platforms, the parent company of telecom operator Reliance Jio, on Thursday reported a 4.9% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth in its net profit to Rs 6,861 crore for the October-December quarter.
Consolidated revenue from operations during the period rose 4.3% QoQ to Rs 33,074 crore on the back of the impact of tariff hikes, subscriber additions, growth in data and voice consumption.
Owing to the impact of tariff hikes in July last year, the company’s average revenue per user (Arpu) per month rose 4.2% QoQ to Rs 203.3. Jio’s Arpu growth in Q3 follows significant progress in Q2FY25 when it rose to Rs 195 after four consecutive quarters at Rs 182.
The company said strong operating revenue growth was due to the partial impact of tariff hikes, ramp-up in the pace of home connect and accelerating non-connectivity digital services businesses. Further, it said the residual impact of tariff hikes is still to play out.
The numbers were in line with analysts’ estimates.
Reliance Jio added 3.3 million subscribers during the quarter compared to the 10.9 million subscribers lost in the preceding quarter. At the end of the December quarter, total subscribers were at 482.1 million, up from 478.8 million as of September end.
The company said the customer addition has rebounded to pre-tariff-hike levels in the exit month after transient SIM consolidation.
Of the total 490 million user base, the 5G base of Jio was at 170 million, up from 148 million 5G subscribers in the preceding quarter. Jio is the only company with the largest user base outside China. Its 5G network now carries 40% of its wireless data traffic.
“Robust growth in digital services business was led by sustained subscriber addition and consistent improvement in customer engagement metrics. This was well supported by a favourable subscriber mix, with an increasing number of users upgrading to 5G networks,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries.
“Jio’s compelling offering of home broadband services also continued to rapidly gain ground and maintain its pre-eminent market position,” Ambani added.
Owing to revenue growth, consolidated operating profit or Ebitda rose 4.1% QoQ to Rs 16,585 crore. Ebitda margin, however, fell by 10 basis points sequentially to 50.1%.
Total data traffic rose 3.3% QoQ to 46.5 billion GB. The growth can be attributed to the growth of fibre broadband and AirFiber users.
On the back of the strong demand for bundled entertainment and connectivity solutions, Jio has recorded its highest-ever quarterly home connections at over 2 million, the company said. JioAirFiber user base was at 4.5 million at the end of December.
The average data consumption per user per month rose 4.2% sequentially to 32.3 GB.
The company said more than 70% of incremental JioAirFiber additions are coming from underserved cities/ towns. Overall pace of home connection for Jio has touched 17 million connections.
“Jio has played a key role in digital inclusion by bringing the world’s best communication technologies to every Indian. Rapid scale-up of 5G adoption and proliferating fixed broadband beyond Tier1 towns over the past year, further strengthens the Digital India mission,” said Akash M Ambani, chairman at Reliance Jio.
“Jio will continue to lead the charge in technology innovation by fully embracing the power of AI to create a connected, intelligent future that is truly transformative. This will drive sustained value creation over the next many years,” Akash M Ambani said.
The total voice consumption on the network rose marginally sequentially to 1.46 trillion minutes during the quarter. The average voice consumption per user per month rose to 1,013 minutes from 977 minutes in the preceding quarter.
