India’s largest mobile provider by subscribers, Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) – part of Jio Platforms Limited (JPL), the digital services division of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) – has reported standalone operating revenue of INR174.8 billion (USD2.3 billion) for the three months ended 30 September 2020, up from INR131.3 billion a year earlier. The full-service provider recorded a slight increase in quarterly expenses to INR138.7 billion from INR116.4 billion over the same period and, as a result, net income nearly tripled year-on-year from INR9.9 billion to INR28.4 billion. Consolidated revenue for JPL, meanwhile, was INR185.0 billion for the period under review – an increase of 7.2% quarter-on-quarter – whilst EBITDA was up 8.7% q-o-q to INR79.7 billion and net profit was INR30.2 billion (INR25.2 billion in the preceding quarter).
In operational terms, the company counted a total customer base of 405.6 million at end-September 2020, with an ARPU of INR145. The operator claimed that ‘customer engagement continued to be robust’ during the period, citing average wireless data consumption per user per month of 12.0GB, and average voice usage of 776 minutes, and an increase in usage of application-based voice on data networks.