The youngest and the largest telco Reliance Jio’s quarterly profit rose 13.2 per cent sequentially to Rs 2,844 crore for the September quarter on the back of ARPU uplift and dominating market base. The telco had posted a net profit of Rs 990 crore in the July-September quarter of the previous fiscal.
The company on Friday also said Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and The Public Investment Fund have purchased units of Fibre Trust worth over Rs 7,500 crore cumulatively (Rs 3,779 crore each).
Jio’s net profit jumped to Rs 2,844 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2020, from Rs 990 crore in the year-ago period.
Company’s revenue from operations surged to Rs 17,481 crore during the just-ended quarter.
Reliance Jio’s operating profit jumped to Rs 7,701 crore and Margin expanded from 43.6 per cent to 42.30 per cent.
“The company has evaluated the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and has determined that there is no significant impact on its financial position and performance,” Reliance Jio said in its filing.
In an investor presentation, the company said the total customer base stood at 405.6 million of September 2020, making it the first operator outside China to surpass 400 million subscribers in a single country market.
The financial performance was “robust” despite COVID-related challenges and quarterly earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) run rate for Jio Platforms crossed USD 1 billion (over Rs 7,400 crore).
For Jio, net customer addition stood at 7.3 million.
The ARPU or earnings per subscriber – a key metric for the telecom companies – improved to Rs 145 in Q2FY21 from Rs 127.4 in the year-ago period, and about Rs 140 in the previous quarter.
“Blended ARPU (Average Revenue Per Subscriber) at Rs 145 was up 13.8 per cent year-on-year with continued migration to higher tariff plans,” the presentation said.
For Jio Platforms, the net profit increased 20 per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 3,020 crore in Q2FY21, from Rs 2,520 crore in the Q1FY21.
Reliance Jio Platforms earlier in the year raised about Rs 1,52,056 crore from 13 investors, including Facebook, Google, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG, L Catterton, Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures, for a total 32.9 per cent stake.
On the completion of InvIT transactions, Reliance Jio said that Brookfield Infrastructure and its institutional partners completed an investment of Rs 25,215 crore for subscribing to units of the Tower Infrastructure Trust.
The investment provides strong sponsorship for the Trust, it added.
For Fibre InvIT, it said that RIIHL, a subsidiary of RIL, completed the recapitalisation of Digital Fibre Infrastructure Trust.
“Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and The Public Investment Fund have purchased units of Fibre Trust worth Rs 3,779 crore each,” it said.
Jio is the youngest and the largest operator in the three-private player Indian telecom market, that has historically been competitive. The competition became more intense after Jio’s entry in 2016 with free calls and cheap data, which prompted some old rivals to exit or merge with other operators.