Jio Platforms (JPL) net profit rose 44.9% on-year in the April-June quarter, driven by strong mobile phone subscriber additions and higher data consumption.
For the fiscal first quarter, JPL’s consolidated net profit stood at RS 3,651 crore compared with RS 3,510 crore at March-end, and RS 2,519 crore a year ago, the company said in a release on Friday. Quarterly revenue rose to RS 18,952 crore from RS 18,278 crore in the January-March period and RS 17,254 crore a year ago.
The average revenue per user (ARPU), a key performance parameter, for the telecom business, grew sequentially to RS 138.4 from RS 138.2 in the previous quarter.
Net subscriber additions for JPL continued to be strong with 14.4 million in the just-ended quarter. Jio ended April-June with 440.6 million users, the company said.
“Jio has posted yet another record quarterly performance with industry-leading operating metrics. I am thankful to Jio’s family of loyal subscribers whose number has grown further during the quarter, consolidating its position as India’s No. 1 provider of digital connectivity and services,”
chairman Mukesh Ambani said.
JPL, established in October 2019 as a wholly-owned unit of Reliance, houses the Mukesh Ambani-owned group’s telecom business Reliance Jio Infocomm, the largest in the country, and other digital properties and investments. Reliance Jio though makes up the bulk of JPL’s numbers.
Reliance Jio saw its fiscal first-quarter net profit rise 39% year-on-year and 3.9% sequentially, to RS 3,502 crore. Revenue for the market leader rose to RS 17,994 crore from RS 17,358 crore in the previous quarter and from RS 16,557 crore a year ago.
The telco “saw good traction in subscriber addition and data usage, unaffected by the covid second wave,” the company said.
“Jio’s healthy customer adds is largely driven by the strong take-up of its recent aggressive offers around its 4G feature phone, but ARPU growth is sluggish due to the higher contribution of these low-end JioPhone users,” said Mayuresh Joshi, head of equity research at the Indian unit of US firm William O’ Neil & Co.
Average wireless data consumption per user per month rose to 15.6 GB from 13.3 GB in the fiscal fourth quarter. Average voice consumption, though, fell to 818 minutes per user per month from 823 minutes in the previous quarter.