BENGALURU: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani-run Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has invested a massive amount of money into the largest start-up in the world–Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (Jio). The RIL financials for the quarter ended 31 December 2017 (Q3 2018, quarter under review) showed that its digital services segment (Jio) had assets of Rs 234,986 crore, the largest asset block among any of the six segments (petrochemicals, refining, oil and gas, organised retail, digital services, and others) that the behemoth reports numbers for. And RIL reported net profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 504 crore for Q3 2018 as against net loss of Rs 271 crore during 2Q 2018, the immediate trailing quarter.
The digital services segment’s operating revenue for Q3 2108 was Rs 6,879 crore, up 11.9 percent from the Rs 6,147 crore in the immediate trailing quarter. The value of services increased by 12.7 percent q-o-q to Rs 8,114 crore from Rs 7,197 crore, EBITDA almost doubled (increased by 82.1 percent) in the quarter under review to Rs 2,628 crore from Rs 1,443 crore in Q2 2018. EBIT almost quintupled (453.1 percent) to Rs 1,436 crore from Rs 260 crore.
Jio added 2.15 million net subscribers in Q3 2018 with an ARPU of Rs 154 per customer. The RIL earnings release for its digital services says that average data traffic per customer for the quarter was 9.6 GB per month and total wireless data traffic has crossed 431 crore GB. Video consumption on the Jio network has crossed 200 crore hours per month, averaging 13.4 hours per subscriber per month.
Commenting on the results, RIL chairman and managing director Ambani said, “I would like to thank all our customers for partnering with us in this revolution which has made India a global digital powerhouse. I congratulate all our employees and partners for the strong performance. Our commitment is to keep pushing newer innovative products which would radically transform customer lives and generate huge societal value.”
“Jio’s strong financial result reflects the fundamental strength of the business, significant efficiencies and right strategic initiatives. Jio has demonstrated that it can sustain its strong financial performance,” he concluded.
Organised retail business
Revenues for Q3 2018 grew by 116.4 percent y-o-y to Rs 18,798 crore from Rs 8,688 crore. PBDIT for Q3 2018 increased by 82.0 percent y-o-y to Rs 606 crore from Rs 333 crore. Reliance Retail witnessed stellar performance across all consumption baskets during the period. During the quarter, Reliance Retail added 72 stores across various store concepts and increased the area operated to 14.5 million square feet from 13.2 million square feet in Q3 2017.
RIL numbers
RIL’s consolidated revenue increased by 30.5 percent to Rs 109,905 crore in Q3 2018 from Rs 84,194 crore in Q3 2017. Net profit increased by 25.1 percent to Rs 9,423 crore in the quarter under review as compared with Rs 7,533 crore in Q3 2017.
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