Reliance Jio net profit jumps 62.5% to Rs 1,350 cr in Dec qtr

Telecom operator Reliance Jio on Friday posted a 62.5 per cent jump in its net profit at Rs 1,350 crore in the three months to December 2019, as it added more users and saw per subscriber earning rising on back of an increase in tariff.

The company's strong performance comes at a time when its rivals are staring at billions of dollars in statutory dues, leading to record losses in the previous quarter.

Reliance Jio had posted a net profit of Rs 831 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2018-19.

The company recorded an increase of 28.3 per cent in its operating revenue at Rs 13,968 crore compared to Rs 10,884 crore in the year-ago period.

"Jio has continued on its unprecedented growth journey receiving overwhelming customer response for best in class mobile connectivity services. Jio is also determined to redefine the wireline infrastructure, home entertainment and enterprise market in India with its FTTx services which bundle best-in-class connectivity with bouquet of digital content and services," RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.

He said a truly transformational and disruptive digital services company has also been set up to drive the next leg of growth.

Reliance Jio subscriber base increased by 32.1 per cent as on December 31, 2019 on year-on-year basis to 37 crore and average revenue per user (ARPU) stood at Rs 128.4 during the quarter.

The ARPU was up compared to Rs 120 in July-September quarter reported by Reliance Jio, however, it was lower than Rs 130 recorded by the company in the year ago period. The company was able to arrest decline in ARPU during the reported quarter.

Total wireless data traffic on company's network increased by 39.9 per cent to 1,208 crore GB on Y-o-Y basis during the quarter and voice traffic during the quarter jumped 30.3 per cent to 82,640 crore minutes.

The company cushioned itself from mobile call termination charges by imposing six paise on outgoing calls to network of competitors for recharges done by Jio customers effective October 10 onwards.

"Jio became a net recipient of access charges within two months of implementation of IUC tariffs, with outgoing traffic in overall offnet traffic reducing to 48 per cent by the end of the quarter," the company said.

The average consumption of data per subscriber increased Y-o-Y basis to 11.1 GB from 10.8 GB but it was lower when compared to 11.7 GB reported by the company in second quarter of current fiscal.

The company during the quarter made provision of Rs 177 crore for adjusted gross revenue while its rivals have to jointly pay over 1.47 lakh crore for the same.

These AGR liabilities arose after the Supreme Court in October last year upheld the government's position on including revenue from non-telecommunication businesses for calculating the annual AGR of telecom companies, a share of which is paid as licence and spectrum fees to the exchequer.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected older telecom player's plea for review of its AGR order after which Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea said they are evaluating filing a curative petition before the apex court for relaxation on penalties and payment deadline.

Vodafone Idea -- which is staring at unpaid statutory dues of Rs 53,038 crore, including Rs 24,729 crore of spectrum dues and Rs 28,309 crore in licence fee -- has already warned of shut down if no relief is given.

"If we are not getting anything then I think it is the end of story for Vodafone Idea," its Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla had said last month.

The statutory liabilities in the case of Bharti Airtel adds up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, of which Rs 21,682 crore is licence fee and another Rs 13,904.01 crore is spectrum dues (excluding the dues of Telenor and Tata Teleservices). This week, the Sunil Mittal led company raised USD 3 billion through Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) and FCCB route to pay for the statutory liabilities.

Dues dating back 15 years, as per the October order, have to be paid by January 23.