Reliance Jio Q4 Net Profit Zooms 177.5% to Rs 2,331 Crore; Facebook-Jio Platforms Transaction to Be Closed by June 2020

New Delhi, April 30: Reliance Jio on Thursday reported a 177.5 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit for the three months ended March 31, 2020 at Rs 2,331 crore, fuelled by rising subscriber base, data usage and impact of the recent tariff hike.

Announcing Q4FY20 and full year numbers, Reliance asserted that Facebook-Jio Platforms transaction will be closed by end of this quarter. Last week, Facebook had announced an investment of USD 5.7 billion (Rs 43,574 crore) in Jio Platforms.

Jio's net profit stood at Rs 2,331 crore during March quarter, and there was exceptional item (income) during the quarter of Rs 31 crore related to reversal of provisions on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues.

The net profit of Jio stood at Rs 840 crore in the year-ago period.

Sequentially, the net profit was 72.7 per cent higher when compared to Rs 1,350 crore in December quarter (Q3FY20).

Commenting on Q4 results, Reliance Industries Limited Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said, "Jio is embarking on the next leg of growth with a path-defining partnership with one of the world's largest digital companies, Facebook".

"We are together determined to make India a truly digital society with best-in-class connectivity network complemented with disruptive digital technology platforms for entertainment, commerce, communication, finance, education and health harnessing world's best tech capabilities.

"Our focus will be India's 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector," he said.

After Facebook, Jio Platforms has also received interest from other global investors for similar sized addditional stake. For the telecom business, the Average Revenue Per User or earning per subscriber was sequentially higher at Rs 130.6 per month (Rs 128.4 in December quarter), and the company said that further impact of December 2019 tariff hike will flow through in coming months.

Subscriber base as on March 31, 2020 was at 387.5 million with net addition of 17.5 million during 4QFY20, it said. The company, in a statement said, that engagement levels showed a significant increase during the lockdown with no drop in network performance.

Jio's standalone revenue from operations for fourth quarter stood at Rs 14,835 crore, which translates into year-on-year growth of 26.6 per cent.

The net profit increased to Rs 5,562 crore for the full year FY20 from Rs 2,964 crore in the previous fiscal, an annual increase of 88 per cent.

Revenue from operations was at Rs 54,316 crore for FY20, up from Rs 40,663 crore in FY19. The company said that Jio Platforms will launch a nationwide video platform called 'JioMeet'.

"Customer engagement continues to be robust with average data consumption per user per month of 11.3 GB and average voice consumption of 771 minutes per user per month," the company statement said.

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