Reliance Jio added 90 million subscribers during 2019 to sit at 370 million
Indian giant Reliance reported its fiscal results for the third quarter to December 31 on Friday, with its telco arm Reliance Jio continuing to experience rapid growth.
Jio now has 370 million subscribers, an increase of 90 million compared to the same time last year, with average monthly revenue per user reported as ₹128. Over the previous year, the number of new additions to its network total at 136 million.
Revenue for the digital services segment, through which Jio reported, increased by 36% year on year to ₹17,555 crore ($2.47 billion), and earnings before interest and taxes increased 63% to ₹3,857 crore ($543 million).
The company said its standalone earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for digital services was ₹5,601 crore and standalone net profit was ₹1,350 crore. Jio copped a ₹177 crore expense related to license fees.
During the third quarter, Jio introduced interconnection tariffs (IUC) on its plans to recover termination charges.
"Elimination of 22.3 million subscribers during the quarter, primarily excessively heavy voice users, owing to implementation of IUC tariffs due to regulatory uncertainty," the company said in its results.
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"Jio became a net recipient of access charges within two months of implementation of IUC tariffs, with outgoing traffic in overall offnet traffic reducing to 48% by end of quarter."
Reliance said it is in the process of shifting its Jio fibre-to-the-home users from test plans to paid plans as well as "ramping up sales" in 1,600 cities.
"We expect India enterprise connectivity market to grow multi-fold over the next few years with our extensive fibre backbone and long-term partnership with Microsoft enabling us to reach the large and underserved SMB and Micro enterprises market," it said.
In August, Jio and Microsoft signed a 10-year agreement.
During the quarter, Reliance created a wholly-owned subsidiary for its digital platforms dubbed Jio Platforms Limited, which will eventually hold Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, the company said.
"This will enable access to world class technology platforms across healthcare, education and agriculture," it added.
Overall for Reliance, the Indian giant delivered revenue of ₹168,858 crore and net profit of ₹11,640 crore.
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