Jio Posts Q1 Profit, Subscribers Consume 642 Crores GB Data in the Quarter

Jio has posted a net profit of Rs. 612 crores for the first quarter just a day after arch rival Airtel reported a drop in net income. The Jio quarterly revenue stood at Rs. 8,109 crores as for June 30, 2018, with an ARPU (average revenue per user) of Rs. 134.5. This is the second consecutive dip in ARPU for the company, which earned Rs. 154 per customer in the Dec 2017 quarter and Rs. 137.1 crores in the January-March period. The Jio user base stands at 215.3 million at the end of June quarter, a figure RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced at the company’s AGM earlier this month.

According to RIL data, Jio added 28.7 million new subscribers in Q1 2019 compared to 26.5 million in the preceding three months. The company says this is the highest user growth it has experienced since it started commercial operations in April 2017. The churn rate (percentage of people leaving Jio against those joining the network) was 0.30 percent, which the operator claims is the lowest in the industry.

Users consumed an average of 10.6GB data per month, while voice call consumption was 744 per month per user. Total data traffic for the quarter was 642 crores GB and total voice traffic stood at 44,871 crore minutes. Videos accounted for the largest chunk of data usage, with 15.4 hours worth video consumption per user per month. The company claimed it had the largest mobile data consumption network and the largest VoLTE network in the world. It also claimed it has 100 percent network availability and lowest call drop rate at 0.13 percent.

The company did not reveal any sales figures for the Jio Phone, except saying that the new Monsoon Hungama Offer has lowered the upfront cost for buyers.

Earlier this month at the RIL AGM, Jio announced its next big telecommunications project, Jio GigaFiber. A FTTH broadband service, it aims to provide high-speed broadband Internet with speeds up to 1Gbps to homes and businesses in 1,100 cities across the country. This broadband service will also power Jio’s Giga TV set-top box and Internet of Things suite. Registrations for the service begin on August 15.

Will Jio Phone 2 help WhatsApp, YouTube reach the next billion users in India? We discussed that on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.