Higher tariffs boost Jio Platforms Q3 net profit by 26% to Rs 6,861 crore

ARPU crosses Rs 200, subscriber growth resumes after a quarter

Jio Platforms Ltd (JPL), which runs India’s largest mobile network operator Reliance Jio, on Thursday reported a sharp 26 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase in net profit to Rs 6,861 crore for the third quarter of the current financial year (Q3FY25) as a result of higher telecom tariffs imposed in early-July. On a sequential basis, the holding company for Jio and other digital businesses of the Reliance group witnessed its net profit rise by 4.92 per cent.  In Q3, Jio's Y-o-Y net profit growth rose significantly from the 23.4 per cent, 11.7 per cent, and 12 per cent registered in the previous three quarters, respectively. As a result, the telco's Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) in Q3 rose to Rs 203.3, up from Rs 191.5 in Q2. Before that, it had remained unchanged at Rs 181.7 for four-straight months. Calculated yearly, ARPU was higher by 6.1 per cent in Q3. The company said a partial follow-through of the tariff hike and a better subscriber mix ensured this. "The remaining impact of tariff hike is still to play out," it said.   In Q3, the revenue from operations grew 19.4 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 33,074 crore. Revenue had grown by 18 per cent and 12.8 per cent in the two preceding quarters, respectively. Jio Platforms’ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) for the quarter was a record Rs 16,585 crore, up 18.8 per cent Y-o-Y.   Jio said 170 million subscribers have migrated to Jio’s 5G network, and are accounting for 40 per cent of Jio's wireless data traffic, up from 34 per cent, 31 per cent, and 28 per cent in the preceding quarters. Jio's 5G users now represent the largest 5G subscriber base for any telecom operator outside China, it said.   

  Overall, Jio Platforms had 482.1 million subscribers at the end of Q3, up from 478.8 million at Q2-end. It gained 3.3 million subscribers in the latest quarter, after losing 10.9 million in Q2 in the aftermath of the tariff hike. Before that, the telco had logged seven straight quarters of user addition. Customer addition has rebounded to pre-tariff-hike levels in the exit month after transient SIM consolidation, the company said.  Jio announced it is now the fastest-growing fixed wireless operator globally, with over 4.5 million JioAirFiber connections. JioAirFiber is now available in over 5,900 cities. The service is expected to increase Jio’s home penetration to over 100 million homes. More than 70 per cent of incremental JioAirFiber additions are coming from cities beyond the top 1,000 cities/towns.  “Rapid scale-up of 5G adoption and proliferating fixed broadband beyond Tier-1 towns over the past year further strengthen the Digital India mission," said Akash M Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm.  Engagement on the network remained strong, with total data and voice traffic increasing by 22 per cent and 6 per cent annually, respectively. In Q1, the company said Jio has become the largest operator globally in terms of data traffic. Per capita data consumption by Jio users rose to 32.3 GB per month, or more than 1 GB/day.