Led by an increase in revenue, Reliance Jio, the country’s largest mobile network operator, saw its net profit rise 28.6 per cent to Rs 4,881 crore year-on-year (YoY) in the third quarter of FY23.
Jio, which launched commercial 5G service in end-October, gained 5.3 million new users and the company’s subscriber count stood at 432.9 million at the end of the third quarter.
The company said it was stepping up the speed and coverage of its 5G network, which now extends to 134 cities and towns.
Jio Platform’s revenue from operations grew 20.9 per cent annually to Rs 24,892 crore in the third quarter.
The average revenue per user (Arpu) in Q3 stood at Rs 178.2, which was 17.5 per cent higher YoY and 0.5 per cent higher QoQ.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) grew 25.1 per cent YoY to Rs 12,519 crore.
The margin increased by 170 bps to 50.3 per cent on a YoY basis.
EBIDTA growth was led by an increase in revenue and margin improvement.
The company’s finance cost declined 16.7 per cent to Rs 1,047 crore due to the repayment of high-cost deferred-payment liabilities.
Average data consumption per user per month increased to 22.4 GB (Gigabytes), up from 22.2 GB in the second quarter of FY23.
Total data consumption was 28.9 billion GB, up from 28.2 billion in the second quarter.
“Jio is undertaking the most ambitious and fastest ever 5G roll-out plan for any country of our size. Within three months of launch, Jio True5G is now available across 134 cities and would be available across India by December 2023. In addition, Jio will connect over 100 million premises with JioFiber and JioAirFiber, offering unparalleled digital experiences. We will also empower small merchants and businesses with cutting-edge, plug and play solutions delivered from the cloud,” said Akash Ambani, chairman, Reliance Jio Infocomm.
The company is scaling up its fiber business and is also seeing an improvement in the quality of subscribers with a higher mix of post-paid and set-top box users.
Jio said it saw more than six hours of daily engagement on set-top boxes and two times the YoY growth in data traffic for fixed broadband.
