Jio’s profit, revenue surge in Q4 on subscriber gains, past tariff increases

Reliance Jio, the telecom giant backed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, on Friday reported a surge in net profit, revenue, and average revenue per user (Arpu) for the January-March quarter, boosted by a flow-through of past tariff increases and subscriber additions, the company said in a statement.

Reliance Jio Infocomm is India’s largest telecom operator by market share and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Ltd, accounting for most of its business. Jio Platforms, which houses Reliance Industries Ltd's telecom and digital services business, reported a 2.3% QoQ growth in its consolidated net profit to ₹7,022 crore for the March quarter. Consolidated revenue from operations rose 2.8% sequentially to ₹33,986 crore.

On year-on-year basis, Jio Platforms clocked a 17.7% revenue growth and a 25.7% increase in net profit for the quarter ended March.

Reliance Jio's revenue from operations on a standalone basis grew 15.6% year-on-year (YoY) and 2.4% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to ₹30,018 crore. The company’s net profit rose 24.5% YoY and 2.5% QoQ to ₹6,642 crore.

“Steady increase in subscriber base, with an improving mix and increasing user engagement metrics boosted earnings. Strong adoption of our 5G services and our home broadband offerings continues with accelerated addition in subscribers and in the number of home-connects,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd.

A steady growth from Jio has come at a time when its competitor Vodafone Idea recently awarded the government a larger stake of 49% in the company by converting a part of its dues into equity. Bharti Airtel too has asked for an equity conversion of its dues to the government.

Jio’s Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) rose 18.5% YoY and 2.6% QoQ to ₹17,016 crore in the quarter ended March owing to the impact of the last tariff hikes which led to higher revenue.

Jio’s Ebitda margin was flat sequentially at 50.1%. On a year-on-year basis, margins expanded 40 basis points from 49.7%.

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Owing to the flow-through impact of July 2024 tariff hikes and user additions, the company’s average revenue per user (Arpu) per month rose 13.5% YoY and 1.4% QoQ to ₹206.2. The company said the Arpu growth was partly impacted by lower number of days in the quarter.

Reliance Jio added 6.1 million subscribers during the quarter, taking its base to 488.2 million, compared to the 3.3 million subscribers added in the preceding quarter. 

“New additions were driven by the rebound of mobility additions post tariff hike and the steady ramp-up of connected homes,” the company said.

During the quarter, Jio saw monthly subscriber churn at 1.8%, the lowest in the industry.

Jio has become the world’s largest data company with 191 million 5G users, said Anshuman Thakur, senior vice-president at Jio Platforms. According to Thakur, growing 5G subscriber mix and accelerated home connects are driving the company’s industry-leading traffic growth.

The company had 170 million 5G subscribers in the preceding quarter. The company’s 5G network now carries 45% of its wireless data traffic.

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The company’s home subscribers crossed 18 million, with addition of 1.5 million subscribers during the March quarter. AirFiber subscribers crossed 5.6 million compared to 0.7 million a year ago.

“Jio continues to drive consistent outperformance in customer engagement with best-in-the-world network technologies and a wide bouquet of digital services for all Indians…Jio is working on enabling large scale AI infrastructure and services that will add an intelligence layer to all Jio services,” Akash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, said.

Total data traffic rose 19.6% YoY and 5.2% QoQ to 48.9 billion GB. The growth can be attributed to the growth of fibre broadband and AirFiber users.

The average data consumption per user per month on the company’s network was at 33.6 GB compared to 32.3 GB in the preceding quarter and 28.7 GB in the year-ago period.

“Positive Jio results would reflect the size of the challenge it presents to its competitors. However, it will also reassure those who have invested, or plan to invest in telecom networks about the prospects of the sector when it comes to demand for data services,” said Mahesh Uppal, director at ComFirst, a communications policy consultancy firm.

The total voice consumption on Jio’s network rose 3.5% YoY and 2% QoQ to 1.49 trillion minutes during the quarter. The average voice consumption per user per month rose to 1,027 minutes from 1,013 minutes in the preceding quarter.

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