The consolidated net profit of Reliance Industries Ltd, the oil to telecom conglomerate owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, rose 18.3 per cent in the July-September quarter to ₹11,262 crore from a year ago, as revenue from operations jumped 4.8 per cent to ₹1,63,854 crore. The consolidated net profit was ₹9,516 crore on an operational revenue of ₹1,56,291 crore in the second quarter of FY19.
Robust growth
Reliance Industries said the quarterly consolidated revenue was driven mainly by robust growth in retail and digital services businesses, which grew by 27 per cent and 34 per cent respectively. This helped partially offset the drop in revenue in the refining and petrochemicals businesses.
“The results reflect benefits of our integrated oil to chemicals value chain and the rapid scale-up of our consumer businesses,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries.
The company’s consumer businesses now account for 33 per cent of the EBITDA, which grew by 15.5 per cent to ₹25,820 crore from ₹22,359 crore a year ago.
Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio), a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL, has posted a net profit of ₹990 crore in the quarter under review, a 45.4 per cent rise from ₹681 crore recorded during the same quarter a year ago. The company’s standalone revenue from operations rose 33.7 per cent to ₹12,354 crore (₹9,240 crore).
The company’s EBITDA rose to 44.6 per cent to ₹5,166 crore (₹3,573 crore) with a 41.8 per cent margin. However, it’s average revenue per user (ARPU) fell to ₹120 per subscriber per month from ₹122 recorded in sequential June quarter. RJio lost about ₹652 crore during the quarter to interconnect user charges (IUC), while it incurred a capex of ₹5,000 crore during the quarter, Anshuman Thakur, Head of Strategy and Planning at RJio, said.
Earlier this month, RJio had decided to charge 6 paise per minute of IUC from its customers for off-net calls. “We see this benefiting margins in the October-December quarter,” he said.
RJio added 103 million users in the last 12 months, taking its total subscriber base to over 350 million.
The company’s revenue from refining and marketing business dropped by 1.6 per cent to ₹97,229 crore from ₹98,760 crore a year ago, reflecting lower crude prices.
The gross refining margin fell marginally to $9.4 per barrel from $9.5 per barrel a year ago. The GRM for the second quarter, though, was the highest in the last four quarters. The crude throughput fell to 16.7 million metric tonnes from 17.7 mmt a year ago. The petrochemicals business reported a 11.9 per cent drop in revenue to ₹38,538 crore from ₹43,745 crore in the second quarter of FY19. The throughput in petrochemicals rose to 9.9 mmt, the highest ever, from 9.4 mmt a year earlier.