RIL net profit falls 11 per cent on weak petroleum biz, finance cost
MUMBAI: Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the country’s most valuable firm in terms of market capitalisation, on Friday, announced an 11% decline in net profit to Rs 16,011 crore for the quarter ending June 2023, compared to Rs 17,955 crore in the same quarter the previous year.
The company’s profit was impacted by weakness in its oil-to-chemical (O2C) business and higher finance and depreciation cost. Finance cost jumped 46% to Rs 5,837 crore due to higher interest rates and loan balances.
Depreciation increased by 31.7% to Rs 11,775 crore due to an expanded asset base across all the businesses and higher network utilisation in the Digital Services business. EBITDA for the quarter rose 5.1 per cent to Rs 41,982 crore. The growth in EBITDA was led by consumer and upstream businesses, which offset the decline in O2C earnings.
Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate reported 5.4% fall in revenue to Rs 2.1 lakh crore from Rs 2.22 lakh crore in the year-ago period, mainly driven by 17.7% drop in sales at the oil-to-chemicals segment, which took a hit from 31% decline in crude oil prices and lower price realisation of downstream products. Oil-to-telecom major declared a dividend of Rs 9 for the financial year 2023.
The mainstay oil refining and petrochemicals business, called O2C, posted a 23.2 per cent fall in EBITDA to Rs 15,271 crore. Rising demand, low inventories and oil market disruption centred around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed cracks -the differential between a barrel of crude oil (raw material) and the petroleum products refined from it - to record last year.
Diesel cracks in June last year soared to $ 74.95 a barrel while petrol cracks neared $ 42. Jet fuel cracks soared to $62. Diesel cracks in June this year hovered between $16 and $19 while petrol cracks were in the range of $10 to $14.
The conglomerate continued to post an uptick in consumer businesses of retail and telecom. While higher subscriber addition, stable ARPU (average revenue per user) and more users converting to 5G boosted telecom segment earnings, the retail segment performed better than peers despite no demand trigger such as the festive season.
“Reliance’s strong operating and financial performance this quarter demonstrates the resilience of our diversified portfolio of businesses that cater to demand across industrial and consumer segments,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, RIL.
Jio net profit rises 12.5% to Rs 5,098 crore in first quarter
NEW DELHI: Digital services company Jio Platforms on Friday reported a 12.5% year-over-year jump in net profit at Rs 5,098 crore in the June 2023 quarter on account of subscriber additions and better realisation per user. The company posted a net profit of Rs 4,530 crore in the same period a year ago. Revenue from operations of Jio Platforms came in at Rs 26,115 crore during the reported quarter, up 11.3 per cent from 23,467 crore over the year-ago period.