Jio Platforms Q1 net zooms 45% to ₹3,651 crore

Jio Platforms on Friday posted a nearly 45 percent year-on-year jump in its net profit for the June quarter at ₹3,651 crore, fuelled by robust subscriber adds and a surge in data usage.

Revenue from operations of Jio Platforms that houses India's youngest but largest telecom firm Jio and apps came in at ₹18,952 crore in Q1 FY22, up 9.8 percent over the year ago period.

Jio said it remains optimistic about overall demand scenario despite challenges, and exuded confidence that it will be the first to launch full-fledged 5G services in India.

"This was a tough quarter for the business because of COVID related disruptions...on-the-ground situation was not good, especially April and May both months, and even now recovery is just about beginning.

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"Hopefully things will keep getting better...However, we are very optimistic about overall demand scenario and our ability to service that demand," Reliance Jio Head of Strategy Anshuman Thakur said in a post-earnings call.

During the June quarter, average realisation per customer measured in terms of ARPU -- a key metric for telcom firms -- was stable ₹138.4 per subscriber per month, against ₹138.2 in the March quarter.

The value of services in the quarter was at ₹22,267 crore, an increase of 9.8 percent year-on-year.

"Quarterly operating revenue was ₹18,952 crore, growth of 19 percent adjusted for IUC, driven by continued subscriber traction in connectivity business," the company said in a statement.

Reliance Jio Infocomm's net profit for June quarter stood at ₹3,501 crore, against ₹2,520 crore in the same period of the previous year.

Jio said the subscriber additions continued at a "healthy pace" despite the severe second wave of COVID, and the customer base surged to 440.6 million in the June quarter, with net add of 42.3 million users year-on-year.

The total data traffic was 20.3 billion GB in the quarter, growing at 38.5 percent year-on-year, while the total voice traffic logged 19.5 percent growth.

Spectrum investments have created capacity to onboard the next 200 million customers on Jio's network, the company said.

Jio has received necessary approvals and trial spectrum for initiating 5G field trials, it said, adding the converged and future-proof architecture that the company is giving shape to will enable Jio's network to quickly and seamlessly upgrade from 4G to 5G.

In a detailed presentation on the Q1 scorecard, the company said JioFiber now has over 3 million connected homes with improving momentum in recent months.

"Jio's optical-fiber network is physically present outside more than 12 million premises," the presentation said.

Thakur acknowledged that while there have been challenges and delay in incremental monetisation of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and digital platforms, the company sees a "long runway" ahead of it, both on mobility side with network capacity and devices and on FTTH and enterprise side "where demand has been extremely strong".