Reliance Jio Posts Stellar Q3 Records as Revenue Grows 13.8% Y-o-Y

Late on Friday, Reliance Jio released its financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal, extending its lead at the top of the Indian telecom sector.

Huge Strides Forward for Jio

The telco posted solid financial metrics, with gross revenue growing by 13.8% to reach ₹24,176 crores, up from ₹23,222 crores in 2QFY22. At the same time, EBITDA went up by 18%, reaching ₹10,008 crores from ₹9,294 crores in 2QFY22. Also, the telco registered an EBITDA margin of 48.6%, up from 47% in 2QFY22. The trend continued with Net and Cash profits, which rose by 8.9% and 14.7%, respectively; the Net profit reached ₹3,795 crores, while the cash profit reached ₹8,747 crores.

Jio remains the most financially-stable telecom operator in the country. That fact reflects rather neatly in the financial metrics that the telco has posted, as its ARPU crossed the ₹150 mark for the first time in its history. The telco posted an ARPU of ₹151.6 per user per month, which has taken it within touching distance of Bharti Airtel. Furthermore, this means that the telco, while still remaining at the second spot for ARPU, has extended its lead over Vodafone Idea by more than ₹40 per user per month.

All in all, the telco posted another very positive and confidence-inspiring quarterly result.

Reliance Jio Extends its Lead at the Top

In terms of telecom performance, we have already talked about the telco's ARPU, which went up by over 8% Q-o-Q. Apart from that, Jio reported a total of 421 million users. While the telco added 34.6 million new users, it managed to lose 8.4 million users too. "This decline is mainly driven by subscribers with inconsistent engagement and lower-end subscribers", Reliance Jio said of the decline.

Also, Jio reported positive rises in the voice & data traffic. The total voice traffic stood at 1.15 trillion minutes, or 2,731.6 minutes per user during the quarter, increasing by 47.8% Y-o-Y. On the other hand, the data traffic stood at 23.4 billion GB during the same time, or 55.58 GB per user, increasing 17.9% on-year. The telco has seen incremental strides in service delivery for the last few quarters. Jio has also posted the fastest 4G speeds with a 22.0 Mbps average download speed.

This quarter was very significant for Reliance Jio as a company as well. First, in November, Jio and Google launched the JioPhone Next, in what was a move to convert the telco's 2G users to 4G. What's more, during November, it overtook BSNL to become the largest wireline broadband provider. Along with this, the telco prepaid ₹30,791 crores clearing all deferred spectrum liabilities acquired in auctions prior to March 2021.