Reliance Industries Ltd posted a 12 percent year-on-year increase in consolidated net profit to a record high of Rs 21,930 crore for the quarter ended December 31, driven by strong performances in its digital services, retail and oils-to-chemicals businesses.

RIL's Q3 revenue rose 7.7 percent to Rs 2.67 lakh crore from a year earlier, while EBITDA climbed 7.8 percent to Rs 48,003 crore. EBITDA margin expanded 10 basis points from a year earlier to 18 percent. It widened 1 percentage point from the preceding quarter.

The digital services division led the charge in the fiscal third quarter, with EBITDA surging 17 percent to Rs 16,640 crore, driven by a higher average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 203.3. Jio continued its aggressive 5G expansion, with 170 million True5G subscribers now contributing 40 percent of the company's wireless traffic.

"Robust growth in digital services business was led by sustained subscriber addition and consistent improvement in customer engagement metrics. This was well supported by a favorable subscriber mix, with an increasing number of users upgrading to 5G networks," said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Ltd.

With gains from tariff hikes in its wireless business expected in the coming months, RIL is expected to sustain growth momentum.

Retail business EBITDA increased 9 percent to Rs 6,840 crore, reflecting steady consumer demand. "Retail segment delivered a strong performance, with noteworthy contribution from all formats. The business ably capitalized on the pick-up in consumption amid festive demand during the quarter," said Mukesh Ambani.

The oil-to-chemicals (O2C) segment was supported by strong domestic demand and increased volumes. The segment's revenue rose 6 percent. The oil and gas division's EBITDA fell 4 percent due to lower KG-D6 gas field production. However, the company maintained stable upstream performance overall.

Capital expenditure for the December quarter stood at Rs 32,259 crore, well covered by a cash profit of Rs 38,227 crore.

Reliance Industries reported robust performance across its key verticals - Oil-to-chemicals, Jio Platforms, and Retail.

Oil-to-chemicals

Revenue for the company’s oil-to-chemicals (02C) business for the quarter jumped by six percent to Rs 1.49 lakh crore, from Rs 1.41 lakh crore in the year ago period.

Ebitda for the December quarter stood at Rs 14,402 crore, compared to an Ebitda of Rs 14,065 crore in the same period last year.

Segment revenue grew in the December quarter on account of higher production meant for sale as compared to 3Q FY24 which had planned maintenance and inspection shutdown of major units. Revenue growth was also supported by robust domestic demand and product placement, the company said.

The O2C business includes refining, petrochemicals, fuel retailing through Reliance BP Mobility Ltd, aviation fuel sales and bulk wholesale marketing.

The company does not report its gross refining margins (GRMs) separately but has traditionally outperformed the benchmark Singapore GRMs.

“Reliance’s performance has shown significant resilience from an ebitda standpoint given the market that we saw. We benefited from the growth in production, demand in the domestic market,” said Srikanth Venkatachari, CFO, Reliance Industries.

“We are prioritising transportation fuels over aromatics. We focused a lot on domestic fuel sales and on a lot of cost optimization efforts, like reducing freight costs etc,” added Venkatachari.

Oil & Gas business

The oil and gas business reported a quarterly EBITDA of Rs 5,565 crore in the December quarter.

Ebitda margin saw a 100 basis points improvement to 87.4 percent in the quarter.

The oil and gas segment’s revenue came in at Rs 6,370 crore.

While the oil and gas segment performance was impacted by lower volume of gas and condensate in KGD6, lower realisation for CBM Gas and Condensate, the company said that this was partly offset by increase in CBM gas volumes and marginal increase in the KGD6 gas price.

The average price realised for KG D6 gas was $ 9.74 per MMBTU (million metric British thermal unit) in the December quarter compared to $ 9.66 per MMBTU in Q3 FY24. The average price realised for CBM (coal bed methane) gas was $ 10.58 per MMBTU in the quarter compared to $ 15.55 per MMBTU in the year-ago period.

“For the global LNG market, the demand has been resilient, particularly in India, but there have been supply disruptions, mainly LNG terminal outages in Australia and the US,” said Sanjay Roy, Executive Vice-President for exploration and production, RIL

“In the short term, we expect gas prices to remain firm,” he added.

Jio Platforms

Jio Platforms registered a profit of Rs 6,861 crore in the third quarter, an increase of 26 percent.

The telecom and streaming business segment’s revenue from operations rose 19.4 percent to Rs 33,074 crore in the December quarter.

The company said that it witnessed strong operating revenue growth due to partial impact of tariff hike, ramp up in pace of home connect and accelerating non-connectivity digital services businesses.

The average revenue per user (ARPU), an important metric to measure the performance of telecom companies, improved by 11.9 percent to Rs 203.3 per user per month from a year ago.

Jio’s subscriber base was approximately 482 million as of December 31, up 2.4 percent year-on-year.

Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, said, “Jio has played a key role in digital inclusion by bringing the world’s best communication technologies for every Indian. Rapid scale up of 5G adoption and proliferating fixed broadband beyond Tier1 towns over the past year, further strengthens the Digital India mission. Jio will continue to lead the charge in technology innovation by fully embracing the power of AI to create a connected, intelligent future that is truly transformative. This will drive sustained value creation over next many years.”

Kiran Thomas, President Jio Platforms Limited noted that Jio is the world's leading standalone 5G operator (outside China) with a subscriber base of 170 million. About 40 percent of overall traffic is coming from 5G. Our 5G traffic will surpass 4G very shortly, said Thomas.

“Jio saw 280 percent YoY growth in large govt tenders wins, increasing share in state govt connectivity infrastructure. Jio getting selected as exclusive service provider for pan India locations at large corporations,” added Thomas.

Anshuman Thakur, Senior Vice President at Jio Platforms Ltd, pointed out that the telco saw net customer additions of 3.3 million in Q3, a reversal of trend from last quarter. “Subscriber run rate is picking up again,” he noted

“We are seeing very healthy growth in digital services of 60 percent. And the business has crossed an annual revenue run-rate of over Rs 15,000 crore,” added Thakur.

Retail

RIL’s retail arm, Reliance Retail, posted a net profit of Rs 3,458 crore in the quarter, an increase of 10 percent.

Gross revenue increased by 8.8 percent to Rs 90,333 crore in the quarter.

The company opened 779 new stores during the quarter, bringing the total number of stores to 19,102 covering an area under operation at 77.4 million sq. The quarter saw a total footfall of 267 million across formats, a growth of five percent y-o-y.

The focus on scaling up Digital Commerce and New Commerce continued with these channels contributing to 18% of total revenue, the company said.

Isha Ambani, Executive Director, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, said “Reliance Retail delivered strong performance during the quarter led by festive buying across consumption baskets. Our focus on offering wide range of products at an attractive price value proposition continues to draw customers to our stores and digital platforms. We are creating through JioMart – express deliveries, scheduled deliveries coupled with Milkbasket - subscription services, a seamless shopping experience that serves diverse customers across all categories and catchment”.

Dinesh Taluja, CFO, Reliance Retail, pointed out that the retail business saw a milestone quarter in December, with revenues crossing the $10 billion mark.

“Part of growth came from the wedding season and the festive season as well as operational streamlining efforts,” said Taluja.

“Grocery business grew 37 percent YoY. We see our business growing very strongly. Online express delivery business is scaling up very well. We are also adding new categories to the store. New store formats continue to scale well,” he added.

Fashion and Lifestyle, Apparel and Footwear categories saw a strong bounceback in the December quarter, however, jewellery volumes were impacted by substantial increase in gold prices,” said Taluja.

Taluja added that the consumer brands business is scaling up exponentially.

“Revenue across categories was at Rs 8000 crore in the first nine months of FY25. We are also starting to invest in marketing to accelerate the presence of this consumer brands business,” he said.