INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
MUMBAI: Reliance Jio Infocomm has reported a 62.5 per cent increase in net profit for the October-December period, helped by tariff raises
that aided its average revenue per user (ARPU) rebound from seven straight quarters of decline.
The telco, led by Mukesh Ambani, on Friday
said profit for the quarter rose to Rs 1,350 crore compared with Rs 831 crore a year ago
The market had estimated profit to be more than Rs 1,300 crore
Profit was up 36.4 per cent from the preceding quarter
But charging 0.6 paise a minute for calls to rival networks cost the telco some 22 million subscribers, dragging its net additions down to
expanding user base, which stood at 370 million at the end of December, by far the largest in the industry.
The company said that during the
quarter, it recognised estimated statutory dues for 2010-11 to 2018-19 towards licence fee/spectrum usage charges as exceptional item, net
Airtel and Vodafone Idea facing over Rs 35,500 crore and over Rs 53,000 crore in similar dues, respectively
fiscal second quarter, after having fallen for seven successive quarters.
Thakur said the part of the ARPU improvement was because of the
company charging from users the 6 paise a minute it pays Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel as interconnect usage charges (IUC).
But some
decision to charge for voice calls to other networks last October, coupled with the follow-up tariff hike in December, which suggests that
it is still primarily adding low revenue-generating JioPhone users," said Rajiv Sharma, research head at SBICap Securities, said.
Monthly
average data usage per user though fell to 11.1 GB from 11.7 GB while voice consumption per user dipped to 760 minutes per month from 789
largely a fallout of its October 2019 decision to charge for voice calls to other networks to recover IUC
quarters for Jio since all big three telcos have subsequently raised tariffs in December," he said.
Helped by subscriber additions, data
consumption and access revenue, operating revenue rose 28.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 13,969 crore and 6.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter for
termination charges from subscribers for voice calls to other operators, accordingly the access charges have been presented on a gross basis
regulator has deferred implementing a zero-IUC regime to January 2021
sequentially to Rs 5,601 crore
ICICI Securities said it had expected an EBITDA of Rs 5,800 crore.
EBITDA margin expanded to 40.1 per cent from 39.3 per cent in the
preceding quarter, the company said.
Capex for the quarter was Rs 3,000 crore compared with Rs 5,000 crore in the previous quarter.