Reliance Industries Q2 profit at Rs 13,656 crore; revenue up 34%

Reliance Industries on Friday reported a 0.18 per cent year-on-year (YoY) drop in consolidated net profit at Rs 13,656 crore in the September quarter compared with Rs 13,680 crore in the same quarter last year.

The oil-to-telecom major said its revenues for the quarter rose 33.74 per cent to Rs 2,32,863 crore from Rs 1,74,104 crore in the same quarter last year. The revenue growth was driven by higher realisation in oil-to-chemical (O2C) business with sharp increase in energy prices. It also reflected the continued growth momentum across consumer businesses, the company said in a BSE filing.

Ebitda for the quarter rose 14.5 per cent to Rs 34,663 crore from Rs 30,283 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Reliance Industries said its Ebitda growth was driven primarily on account positive operating leverage and operational efficiencies in retail segment, higher gas price realisation with increase in ceiling price, and marginally higher volumes in the o& gas segment. Ebitda growth was also driven by an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) and customer engagement in digital services segment, the company said.

Outstanding debt stood at Rs 2,94,859 crore or $ 36.2 billion as of September 30. Cash and cash equivalents stood at Rs 2,01,606 crore or $ 24.8 billion, the company said.

Reliance Jio
Net profit for telecom arm Reliance Jio stood at Rs 4,729 crore, up 26.9 per cent YoY. Average revenue per user (ARPU) came in at Rs 177.20 per subscriber per month. Total data traffic was up 22.7 per cent at 28.2 billion GB. Total customer base stood at 42.76 crore.

Reliance Retail
Net profit for this segment was 36 per cent YoY at Rs 2,305 crore. Gross revenue for the retail came in at Rs 64,920 crore, up 42.9 per cent. The company operated 54.5 million square feet of area in the September quarter compared with 37.3 million square feet in the corresponding quarter of the last year.

O2C business
The segment's Ebitda fell 5.9 per cent YoY to Rs 11,968 crore primarily on account of introduction of SAED on transportation fuels and lower Polymer deltas. SAED related costs during the quarter was Rs 4,039 crore, Reliance said.

"Performance of our O2C business reflect subdued demand and weak margin environment across downstream chemical products. Transportation fuel margins were better than last year but significantly lower sequentially. Segment performance was also impacted by the introduction of special additional excise duties during the quarter to ensure stable supply and lower volatility in the domestic market," said Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani.

Oil & gas exploration

This segment's EBitda rose sharply to Rs 3,171 crore, which is up almost 3 times on YoY basis, Ebitda margin expanded 12.6 percentage points to 82.3 per cent. The segment revenue was up 134.4 per cent YoY at Rs 3,853 crore, led by higher production and improved gas price realization.

Earlier, shares of Reliance Industries closed the day at Rs 2471.95 on BSE, down 1.16 per cent.