RIL Dec quarter profit rises 13.5%
MUMBAI: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) reported its highest ever quarterly net profit of ₹11,640 crore in the December quarter, up 13.55% from ₹10,251 crore in the year-ago period.
According to the company, its net profit, excluding the impact of an exceptional item, would have been ₹11,817 crore. The exceptional item was an expense of ₹177 crore on account of liability towards licence fees.
RIL’S revenue of ₹1.69 trillion for the third quarter of FY20 was a tad lower than a year ago, falling 1.4% from ₹1.7 trillion. The fall in revenue was primarily on account of a 10.6% decline in the order-to-cash business revenue, and lower product price realization, besides a 6.6% fall in Brent crude price.
On a standalone basis, it reported a net profit of ₹9,585 crore, up 7.36% from ₹8,928 crore in Q3 FY19. Revenue fell by 13.1% to ₹93,741 crore for the quarter ended 31 December, from ₹1.08 trillion in the yearago period.
According to a survey of 13 brokers, RIL’S consolidated net sales were expected at ₹1.42 lakh crore and net profit at ₹11,181 crore.
RIL’S gross refining margin (GRM), or what it makes from turning every barrel of crude to fuel, came in at $9.2 per barrel from $8.8 per barrel. Analysts had expected GRM to come in at $9.4 per barrel for the quarter. Benchmark Singapore refining margins turned negative in December 2019, averaging $1.6/ barrel during the quarter, compared with $6.55 in the previous quarter.
Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, RIL, said: “The third quarter results for our energy business reflect weak global economic environment and volatility in energy markets. The refining segment’s performance improved in a difficult operating environment given our continuous focus on cost positions, high operating rates and product placement.”
Revenue from the petrochemicals segment stood at ₹36,909 crore for the quarter, falling 19.1% from ₹45,619 crore in the same quarter last year. Analysts expected petchem margins to remain under pressure given the supply glut in the market.
The petrochemicals segment’s earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was at ₹5,880 crore ($0.8 billion), down 28.5% y-o-y, with a significant decline in margins to near-trough level for most petrochemicals products, due to new capacity addition, inventory overhang and global demand slowdown.
For the organized retail business, revenue for the December quarter grew 27.4% y-o-y to ₹45,327 crore from ₹35,577 crore with accelerated store roll-out and strong like-for-like sales.
Analysts had estimated Reliance Retail’s Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to be at ₹26.1 billion, up 12.5% quarteron-quarter.
NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, India’s largest and only profitable telecom operator, reported a 62.5% year-on-year rise in net profit to ₹1,350 crore for the December quarter, on the back of its move from free voice calling to imposing user charges for calls made to other operators.
The company’s operating revenue rose 28.3% y-o-y to ₹13,968 crore, while its average revenue per user (ARPU) rose to ₹128.4, after successive declines in the last seven quarters, following its decision to charge for calls made to rival networks at 6 paise per minute. It had 370 million subscribers as of December-end.
ARPU is the total revenue of the operator divided by the number of users or connections on its network. From ₹154 in the December 2017 quarter, Jio’s ARPU steadily declined to ₹120 in the September 2019 quarter.
On October 10, Jio said it would charge users 6 paise a minute for calls made to other networks to account for interconnect usage charges (IUC) that it has to pay to rival operators.
The operator said in October that it “had been compelled, most reluctantly and unavoidably”, to make the shift after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) decision to review the date for scrapping IUC from 1 January, 2020, led to regulatory uncertainty. “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 the end of the quarter. This was combined with associated elimination of excessively heavy voice users, with underlying churn remaining stable,” Jio said on Friday.