Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday posted a profit of Rs9,567 crore for the fiscal second-quarter ended September, beating analysts’ estimates. While profit declined by 15% from a year earlier because of lower revenues from its oil and gas business, it was still higher than the Rs9,017.10 crore estimated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey.
The decline in oil and gas revenue was, however, cushioned by strong revenue growth in the company’s telecom and retail arms housed under Jio Platforms Ltd and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. The Mumbai-based company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs11,262 crore in the year-earlier quarter.
Reliance’s retail arm reported revenue of Rs41,100 crore in the September quarter, little changed from a year earlier, but a substantial improvement from the Rs31,620 crore it posted in the preceding June quarter as lockdown conditions eased across the country and physical stores resumed business. Operating revenue (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) was Rs2,006 crore in the quarter, compared to Rs2,322 crore in the year-ago period, while the Ebitda margin narrowed to 5.4% versus 6.3% last year.
“Retail business activity has normalized with strong growth in key consumption baskets as lockdowns ease across the country,” chairman Mukesh Ambani said in a statement.
“With large capital raise in the last six months across Jio and retail business, we have welcomed several strategic and financial investors into the Reliance family,” he added.
“Increased footfall and store openings have contributed to the rebound in retail revenues, with 85% of stores now open,” V Srikanth, joint chief financial officer of RIL, said in an online press conference.
Reliance said it expects retail activity to return to pre-pandemic levels in the ongoing quarter. The company said retail revenue growth was led by strong performance in the consumer electronics segment, thanks to strong demand across categories, with laptops and productivity devices more than doubling sales and high-end TVs, air care and appliances delivering strong growth. The performance was aided by event activation during the Independence Day Golden Event, enabled by offers, strong value proposition and affordability schemes, the company said.
Reliance Jio Infocomm reported a net profit of Rs2,844 crore for the September quarter, nearly tripling the Rs990 crore posted in the same quarter last fiscal. The telecom subsidiary’s revenue from operations rose to Rs17,481 crore from Rs13,130 crore in the same period last year. The average revenue per user (Arpu) rose to Rs145 from Rs140 in the June quarter, and Rs120 a year ago, buoyed by work-from-home that drove data consumption higher, making Jio the “first operator outside China to have 400 million subscribers in a single-country market”.
In the mainstay oil and gas businesses, the company witnessed considerable improvement in operating performance due to improved market conditions as revenue and Ebitda in the petrochemical segment rose sequentially by 17.8% quarter-on-quarter with higher prices across its product portfolio and higher volumes, but are still 23% lower than ₹38,538 crore a year ago.
In the refining and marketing segment, revenue increased by 33.3% to Rs62,154 crore, but was 36% lower than Rs97,229 crore a year ago.