New Delhi, Oct 13 (PTI) Reliance Jio, India's newesttelecom operator known for its disruptive tariffs, todayposted a loss of Rs 270.5 crore for the three months toSeptember as against Rs 21.3 crore loss in the preceding Junequarter.
Standalone revenue from operations stood at about Rs6,147 crore for the September quarter, said Reliance Jio whosesubscriber base has swelled to over 138 million now.
In a statement, Reliance Jio -- which competes with thelikes of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular -- saidthat the consolidated value of services stood at Rs 7,213crore with consolidated EBIT or earnings before interest andtax of Rs 261 crore.
Jio formally launched 4G services in September 2016 withfree voice and data offers. It commenced commercial operationsfrom July 2017, as per the statement.
The company reported earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation and amortisation or EBITDA of Rs 1,443 crore inSeptember 2017 quarter, with margins at 23.5 per cent.
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said Jio iscreating the foundation of data for the next-generationbusiness, at a time when India is ready to go digital and movefrom voice to data.
"The world is transforming, turning digital and India isnot going to be left behind," he said in a statement.
The company said on a net basis 15.3 million customerswere added during the quarter.
Jio registered customer churn of 1 per cent per month butsaid that the number is "expected to reduce further".
The company said data consumption on its network reached9.62 gigabyte (GB) per user per month, and voice consumptionstood at 626 minutes per month. It recorded 178 crore hours ofhigh speed video consumption per month.
The average revenue per user of Jio during the quarterstood at 156.4 per month. Giving its operational metrics, thecompany said that the total wireless data traffic stood at 378crore GB during the quarter while the average voice trafficstood at 267 crore minutes a day.
The Jio numbers comes at a time when the sector iscomplaining of financial stress, and revenues and profits ofthe older telcos have taken a beating.
Telecom operators Idea Cellular and RelianceCommunications registered their first ever consolidated lossin a quarter after Jio started its service. In April-Junequarter, Idea posted loss of Rs 815.9 crore while RCom postedloss of Rs 1,210 crore.
The country's largest telecom company Bharti Airtelposted a 74.89 per cent plunge in consolidated net profit toRs 367 crore for the June quarter of current fiscal.
Incumbent operators Airtel, Idea, and Vodafone haveblamed the free offers by the newcomer for failing healthof the industry, that, as per some estimates, has a cumulativedebt of Rs 4.5 lakh crore.
The Telecom Commission -- the highest policy making bodyof the Department of Telecom -- recently approvedrecommendations of an interministerial group for giving sixmore years to telcos to pay for the spectrum they bought inauctions.
Adding to the financial woes of the incumbent operators,the telecom regulator has slashed the domestic mobiletermination charges by nearly 58 per cent to 6 paise a minute,prompting many operators to approach the courts against thedecision.
The tariff war has also accelerated the consolidation inthe industry and large operators are either combining forces(Idea-Vodafone) or acquiring smaller players (Bharti'sacquisition of Telenor and now the consumer mobile business ofTata Group) to protect their turf. PTI PRS MBIABM.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.