NE BUSINESS BUREAU
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI, JAN 18
Reliance Jio’s standalone revenue from operations for the December quarter stood at Rs 13,986 crore, 28.5 per cent higher than Rs 10,885 crore reported during the corresponding period last year. The December quarter saw Reliance Jio subscriber base reaching 37 crores, up 32.1 percent year-on-year, with the net addition of 1.48 crore during Q3.
Reliance Jio in a statement said its EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) growth for Q3 grew 38 percent YoY to Rs 5,601 crore. The company’s ARPU (average revenue per user) stands at Rs 128.4 per month in the quarter. Total wireless data traffic during the quarter was recorded at 1,208 crore GB, which is up 39.9 percent YoY. The company said the total voice traffic during the quarter stood at 82,640 crore minutes, growing at 30.3 percent YoY.
Commenting on the Reliance Jio Q3 results, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Mukesh Ambani said: “Jio has continued on its unprecedented growth journey receiving overwhelming customer response for best in class mobile connectivity services. We are delivering on our promise to be the driver of the digital revolution in the country. To drive the next leg of growth, a truly transformational and disruptive digital services company has been set-up which will bring together India’s No.1 connectivity platform, leading digital app ecosystem and world’s best tech capabilities, for creating a truly Digital Society for each Indian.”
Notably, during Q3, Reliance Jio had introduced IUC tariffs for the recovery of termination charges. So for recharges done by Jio customers from October 10, calls made to other mobile operators are charged at the prevailing IUC rate of 6 paise per minute through top-up vouchers. Despite the increase in tariff, the company has witnessed robust growth in its user base as well as profit.
Because of SC judgment on adjusted gross revenue (AGR), the company during the quarter recognised estimated liability for the period 2010-11 to 2018-19 towards license fees or spectrum usage charges at Rs 177 crore. Reliance Jio had reported a 45.4 percent increase in net profit for Q2 ended September 30, 2019. Its standalone net profit was Rs 990 crore as opposed to Rs 681 crore during the year-ago period.
Jio with 36.9 cr users emerges as largest telecom player: Trai data
Reliance Jio has become the largest telecom player with 36.9 crore mobile subscribers in November 2019, according to the data published by telecom regulator Trai on Thursday.
Vodafone Idea reported a total mobile subscriber base of 33.62 crores and Bharti Airtel at 32.73 crore customers for November 2019.
Total telephone subscribers in the country declined by 2.4 percent to 117.58 crores in November from 120.48 crores in October.
Mobile subscriber base, which dominates overall telecom connections, declined by 2.43 percent to 115.43 crores in November from 118.34 crores in October with Vodafone Idea losing the highest number of subscribers.
Vodafone Idea lost 3.6 crore customers in the month.
Reliance Jio added 56 lakh, new customers, followed by Bharti Airtel which added 16.59 lakh new subscribers and BSNL 3.41 lakh.
Fixed-line connections also declined to 2.12 crore in November 2019 from 2.14 crore in October.
BSNL continued to record a dip in subscriber base. BSNL lost 1.64 lakh fixed-line customers and its subscriber base slipped to seven digits for the first time at 98.3 lakh.
Reliance Jio fixed-line customer base reached 7 digits to 10.23 lakh with the addition of 43,198 new connections.
The number of broadband subscribers in the country grew by 2.67 percent to 66.12 crore in November from 64.4 crore in October.
“Top five service providers constituted 98.99 percent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of November 2019,” Trai said.
Reliance Jio Infocomm led the chart with 37 crore subscribers, Bharti Airtel 13.99 crore, Vodafone Idea 11.98 crore, BSNL 2.25 crore, and Atria Convergence 15 lakh, as per Trai data.
