(Eds: Adding more quotes and details)Mumbai, Oct 13 (PTI) Reliance Jio, which today stumpedanalysts with a low Rs 270.6-crore net loss in its maidenstandalone financial numbers against market expectations ofaround Rs 2,000 crore, hinted that it may turn in the firstpost-tax profit in the December quarter.
The latest entrant into the competitive telecom spacesaid its average revenue per user or Arpu at Rs 156.4 is thehighest in the industry, even though it's offering 84 days ofdiscounted validity on an 28 days recharge.
Jio began commercial operations with hours of freedata and voice last September and has garnered 138.6 millioncustomers so far, of which around 108 are active. But onlyunder-2 per cent of total customers are post-paid, it said.
"We've the highest Arpu in the industry at Rs 156.4and we've net added 15.3 million customers and our attritionin Q2 was only 1 per cent. Also, I don't see any reason thatthese present run-rates will decelerate or has alreadypeaked," RIL group deputy chief financial officer V Srikanttold reporters when asked whether Jio will report profit inthe December quarter.
He parried a direct answer saying the company doesn'tmake any forward-looking statements.
It can be noted that many market watchers wereexpecting Jio to report around Rs 2,000 crore loss in Q2.
Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy and planning at Jio,chipped in saying, "even though we offer a 28-day validrecharges with 1 GB data per day for Rs 399, effectively acustomer gets to use the same facility for 84 days. As thisoffer will come to an end by November, we should be getting abetter picture on our revenues then. Plus benefit of IUC cutfrom 14 paise to 6 paise per call will have to be considered."Srikant also attributed the better margins and fasterturnaround to the technological superiority of that Jio hasover the rivals, saying "LTE is the most efficient technologyavailable in the segment now. Also look at our sheer scalewhich we can leverage."In Q2, Jio paid Rs 2,000 crore in IUC,Thakur said,adding benefit of lower ICU, which came into force fromOctober 10, depends on the rise in voice calls.
Joi said its consolidated value of services stood atRs 7,213 crore while consolidated EBIT stoodt at Rs 261 crore.
Revenue from operations stood at Rs 6,147 crore andstandalone EBITDA at Rs 1,443 crore with an EBITDA margin of23.5 per cent making its standalone EBIT at Rs 260 crore andEBIT margin at 4.2 per cent.
Total wireless data traffic stood at 378 crore GB andthe average voice traffic at 267 crore minutes per day.
Srikant said Jio has capitalised around Rs 90,000crore of equity while it has a Rs 49,000 crore on debt itsbook. It also has Rs 22,000 crore of deferred payments pendingwith government. Total investment into Jio so far is Rs 1.49trillion and has Rs 62,000 crore in capital work in progress.
Jio spent Rs 670 crore in servicing its debt duringthe quarter, Srikant added.
Total debt of the group rose to Rs 2.14 trillion fromRs 1,96,601 crore in March 2017, while cash in hand incheddown to Rs 77,014 crore from Rs 77,226 crore. RIL's standalonedebt rose to Rs 1.37 trillion from Rs 1.28 trillion.
Of the Rs 8,109 crore net reported in Q1 at theconsolidated level, Rs 2,317 crore came from treasury income,which rose from Rs 2,124 crore in the June quarter, but downfrom Rs 2,393 crore a year ago.
Srikant said having almost done with the petchem andtelecom expansions the capex cycle has peaked for the groupwith Q2 capital spending coming crashing down to around Rs16,000 crore in Q2 from Rs 25,000 crore in Q1.
Of total capex, Jio eat up around Rs 7,000 crore andgoing forward in the second, it will remain at that level,Srikant said.
Jio provided for Rs 1,500 crore in depreciation andamortisation and may for the full year the same may rise toRs 4,500 crore, he said.
Thakur said Jio sold 6 million bundled smartphones inthe quarter and when asked where has the Rs 1,500 eachcollected from phone buyers as a refundable deposit, Srikantsaid this has been accounted as liabilities. PTI BEN BENNSK.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.