Jio growth continues in subscriber numbers, revenue and profit

reliance jio
REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade/Files

CommsUpdate: Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), India’s largest mobile provider by subscribers, has booked operating revenue of INR139.7 billion (USD1.97 billion) for the three months ended 31 December 2019 – an increase of 28.3% year-on-year – with EBITDA of INR56.0 billion and an EBITDA margin of 40.1% for the period. Net profit stood at INR13.5 billion for the quarter, despite an exceptional expense of INR1.8 billion from Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR)-related dues.

The mobile operator counted a total of 370 million subscribers, claiming net additions of 14.8 million for the period. Jio notes that gross additions were 37.1 million but 22.3 million subscribers, principally heavy voice users, were disconnected during the quarter due to a shift in the company’s tariff structure. From 10 October 2019 Jio began charging a rate of INR0.06 per minute for calls to other providers to cover potential termination charges, citing ‘regulatory uncertainty’.

The operator reported that customer engagement remained ‘robust’, however, with average data usage per customer per month reaching 11.1GB, equating to total wireless data traffic of 12.1 billion GB during the quarter (up 39.9% y-o-y).

Jio remained tight-lipped regarding its recent launch of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services, however, stating that it was still in the process of ‘converting initial test users to paid plans’ and was ramping up sales across 1,600 cities.

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