Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the parent company of Reliance Jio, India’s number one telecom service provider, today released its quarterly earnings report for Q2 FY22. Jio’s gross revenue for the quarter was Rs 24,176 crore ($3.3 billion), which is 13.8% higher YoY (adjusted for IUC). The telco’s EBITDA (earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation) stood at Rs 10,008 crore, which is 18% higher YoY during the December 2021 quarter. Note that this is the first time Jio’s quarterly EBITDA has crossed Rs 10,000 crore.
Reliance Jio’s ARPU Rises to Rs 151.6
Reliance Jio’s average revenue per user (ARPU) figure rose to Rs 151.6 per month, which is a healthy 8.4% YoY growth during the December 2021 quarter. This helped the telco report a net profit of Rs 3759 crore ($511 million), up by 8.9% YoY during Q3 FY22. Jio’s total customer base as of December 31, 2021, stood at 421 million, the highest amongst all the private telecom operators in the country. The rise in ARPU was helped by the 20% prepaid tariff hike that got implemented from December 1, 2021. The telco’s total data traffic during the quarter was 23.4 billion GB which is 47.8% up on a YoY basis. Further, the voice traffic for the quarter also grew by 17.9% YoY to 1.15 trillion minutes. Jio’s ARPU should rise further during the last quarter of Q4 of FY22 as the full impact of the prepaid tariff hikes will come into effect. The telco said that it has over 5 million connected wireline customers now, which utilise its FTTH (JioFiber) and Set-Top Box (STB) services. Reliance Jio had also launched its much anticipated affordable smartphone - JioPhone Next during Diwali of 2021. The JioPhone Next is also expected to help the telco in adding new active 4G subscribers which will further push the telco’s ARPU upwards. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Jio offered 22 Mbps download speed which was the fastest amongst all the 4G network service providers in the country.
