India's oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries on Friday said its telecoms venture Jio reported its second successive quarterly net profit since launching two years ago, as it added millions more subscribers. Reliance Industries, owned by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, said Jio made a profit of 5.10 billion rupees ($76.43 million) for the quarter ended March 31, up from 5.04 billion rupees reported in the previous quarter.
"The strong financial results of Jio in a competitive market environment demonstrates the robustness of the Jio business model... Jio has demonstrated that it can scale and sustain its strong financial performance," Ambani said in a statement. With its launch into India's highly competitive telecom sector in September 2016, Jio shook the industry and sparked a price war by offering free voice calls for life and drastically reduced tariffs. The statement added Jio had signed up 26.5 million new subscribers, reaching a total of 186.6 million.
Jio's rivals scrambled to compete with the latest rival, resulting in consolidation in the sector. Meanwhile, Reliances Industries recorded standalone net profit of 86.97 billion rupees for the quarter ended March 31 from 81.51 billion rupees a year earlier, for its oil, refining, and petrochemicals businesses. The figures failed to beat projections from Bloomberg analysts who predicted a profit of 89.23 billion rupees. Reliance said its gross refining margin - the profit earned from each barrel of crude - was down to $11 in the quarter from $11.5 a year earlier. Refining margins are a key profitability gauge for Reliance, one of the world's largest refiners. Reliance shares rose by almost two percent in late trade.