(Reuters) - Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries on Thursday posted a record quarterly profit, driven by growth in its petrochemicals and refining business, while its telecoms group Jio notched up a fifth consecutive profitable quarter.
The telecoms business is central to the ambition of Chairman Mukesh Ambani - Asia's richest man - to make Reliance's consumer businesses as big as its energy operations, which contribute the bulk of group revenue and profit.
In the last two years, Jio has used cut-price data and free voice calls to cornered over 250 million subscribers, leaving rivals nursing losses.
Jio posted a nearly 65 percent jump in profit to 8.31 billion rupees ($117 million).
In the conglomerate's refining and petrochemicals unit, which contribute around three-quarters of overall revenue and profits, revenue rose 47 percent and 37 percent respectively.
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On a standalone basis, which includes primarily refining and petrochemicals, Reliance's third-quarter profit rose 5.6 percent to 89.28 billion rupees.
Gross refining margin (GRM)- the profit earned on each barrel of crude processed - was $8.8 per barrel for the quarter, outperforming the benchmark Singapore complex margin by $4.5 per barrel.
The benchmark GRMs have come down to multi-year lows in the third quarter to below $2 per barrel, hitting all refining companies globally.
Reliance's refinery in the western state of Gujarat is the world's biggest single-location refinery, with a capacity to process 1.36 million barrels per day of crude.
Net profit on a consolidated basis rose to 102.5 billion rupees ($1.44 billion) for October-December, beating analyst average estimate of 96.48 billion rupees, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.
Reliance's consolidated revenue grew 56.4 percent to 1.60 trillion rupees.
(Graphic on India's biggest telcos by market share https://tmsnrt.rs/2SZeOzb)
(Reporting by Krishna V Kurup and Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Alexander Smith)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
