Reliance Jio records net profit of Rs 990 crore during second quarter

Reliance Jio, the country’s second largest telecom operator with 355.2 million subscribers, reported a net profit of Rs 990 crore during the second quarter, up 11.1% sequentially. While revenues increased 5.8% to Rs 12,354 crore quarter-on-quarter, the operating margins came in as a positive surprise, which expanded a good 170 basis points to 41.8% versus 40.1% in the previous quarter. The Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) was up over 10.2% sequentially to Rs 5,166 crore. This is the first time Jio’s operating income has crossed Rs 5,000 crore.

On the ongoing issue about Jio charging its customers interconnect user charges (IUC) at the rate of 6 paisa per minute for outgoing calls to other networks, the senior management at Jio explained that during the quarter, the IUC charge at Rs 652 crore, is down from Rs 850 crore at the end of June quarter, which is due to the traffic mix. Jio has recently said that it has paid Rs 13,500 crore in IUC to incumbents in the last three years.