RJio Q2 net up 11% to Rs 6.81 bn; value of services rises 51% to Rs 109 bn

RIL's telecom arm Reliance Jio Wednesday reported a standalone net profit of Rs 6.81 billion for the September 2018 quarter.

The company had posted a net loss of Rs 2.71 billion in the year-ago period.

On a quarterly basis, its profit grew around 11 per cent from Rs 6.12 billion in the April-June period.

The average revenue per user, however, declined to Rs 131.7 as compared to Rs 134.5 in the previous quarter. But, its impact was mitigated by growth volume of new customers that on-boarded its network during the reported quarter and higher usage of services on its network.

"Jio has accelerated its pace of subscriber additions further with net addition during the quarter of 37 million (as against 28.7 million in the previous quarter), highest in any quarter since the launch of commercial services," the company said.

The value of services sold by Jio grew 51.5 per cent to Rs 109 billion in July-September 2018 period from Rs 71.97 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

"We, at Jio, are glad with our progress towards our mission with more than 250 million subscribers on our network within 25 months of commencement of services. We have enabled our customers to adopt the digital life, with record consumption of data and use of digital services," RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.

The average data usage grew to 11 GB per user per month and average voice consumption of 761 minutes per user per month during the reported quarter compared to 10.6 GB data consumption and 744 minutes per user a month reported in April-June 2018 quarter.

The company is now looking to foray into optical fibre-based broadband services in the country and accordingly announced Rs 5.23 billion majority stake acquisition plan in two fixed line broadband firms -- Den Networks and Hathway Cable.

The company announced to acquire 66 per cent stake in Den Networks for Rs 22.9 billion and 51.3 per cent in Hathway Cable for Rs 29.4 billion.

"Our next generation FTTH and enterprise services are now being made available to our customers to further enhance our value proposition to our customers," Ambani said.