Jio Platforms' Q2 consolidated net profit jumps 23.5 pc to ₹3,728 cr

Jio Platforms on Friday posted a 23.48 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to ₹3,728 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, the company's parent firm Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said in a statement.

The company had recorded a profit of ₹3,019 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

Its gross revenue during July-September 2021 increased about seven per cent to ₹23,222 crore, compared with ₹21,708 crore in the year-ago period.

Adjusted for interconnect usage charges, Jio Platforms' gross revenue for the quarter was ₹23,222 crore, higher by 15.2 per cent year-on-year, according to a statement by RIL.

Jio Platforms is the unit that houses India's youngest but largest telecom firm Jio and apps.

The quarterly operating revenue (net of GST) also increased seven per cent to ₹19,777 crore, from ₹18,496 crore it registered in the year-ago period.

Jio recorded the first-ever decline in its total customer base on a quarterly basis. The company's gross subscriber base dipped 1.11 per cent during the reported quarter to ₹42.95 crore.

The company had closed to 44 crore customers in the April-June 2021 quarter.

Reliance Jio Infocomm President Kiran Thomas said the COVID-19 has been quite tough on a lot of people in India, especially at the bottom of the pyramid.

"During the peak of the second wave, we had done a lot of initiatives... giving free voice minutes to keep them on our network... to keep lifeline alive. But, two quarters later, we find that a large number of people at the bottom of the pyramid have not been able to stay up-to-date with recharges," Thomas said.

He said that according to the policy, the company kept them in the database for about 90 days.

"So, effectively, the effect of these people stopping recharging two quarters before is now getting reflected in our subscriber count, and because of that, you see a net reduction of about 11 million in this quarter.

"Having said that, it has a zero negative impact on all of the numbers I mentioned before, this is more of an accounting correction that we are having to do," Thomas said.

Jio's total customer base was, however, up by 2.38 crore on a year-on-year basis.

The company's average revenue per user (ARPU) grew 3.7 per cent on a month-on-month basis to ₹143.6.

"ARPU has significantly grown to north of 140. This is also because of improving subscriber mix. People who are continuing on our network, we can see increasing engagement both on mobility and fibre to the home side," Thomas said.

The company plans to launch its next version of JioPhone around Diwali.

"Jio and Google are working together to make JioPhone Next available more widely in time for the Diwali festive season," Jio said.

The company said JioFiber has over 40 lakh connected premises with continued improvement in customer connections every month and Jio's optical fiber network is now physically present outside 1.6 crore premises.

The company had over 44 lakh landline connections at the end of August.

Jio recorded 17.6 gigabyte per capita data usage on its network, and the total data traffic on the company's network increased about 51 per cent on a y-o-y basis to 23 exabytes during the quarter.