Jio’s ARPU growth was flat at INR 138 and it saw 14.3 Mn net subscriber additions
JioMart expanded its presence to 218 cities and saw order volumes grow 25% over the quarter ended March
20% of Reliance Retail’s revenue came from ecommerce and local merchant partnerships
Photo Credit: Bloomberg (In Pics) Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms, saw its revenue from operations grow 9.8% year on year to INR 18,952 Cr in the first quarter of FY22, whereas net profit grew 45% to INR 3,651 Cr in the same period. Jio Platforms is the holding company that houses its telecom and other digital business owned by Reliance Industries Limited.
Meanwhile, the telecom business registered a gross customer addition of 26.7 Mn (net addition of 14.3 Mn) in the quarter driven by traction across mobility and homes. The average revenue per user (ARPU) for the first quarter was stagnant at INR 138.4 — growing marginally from INR 138.2 in the previous quarter.
Another important piece in the Jio juggernaut is Reliance Retail — the mammoth retail chain operated by the conglomerate that is now competing with ecommerce majors like Flipkart, Amazon, and Tata-owned BigBasket by making a digital play through JioMart.
In the quarter ended June, JioMart, which is a joint venture between Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms, expanded its presence to 218 cities and saw order volumes grow 25% over the quarter ended March.
Meanwhile, online pharmacy company Netmeds, which was acquired by Reliance last year, saw 60% growth in orders over the previous quarter. Its hyperlocal capabilities were extended to over 150 stores for same-day deliveries.
Also, Urban Ladder, the furniture retail startup that the conglomerate bought in 2020, saw online orders grow 2.5x over last quarter. It developed an assisted sales channel through video calls and launched a multi-brand business in furnishing and décor across 40 sub-categories.
Interestingly, the company said that its online commerce play and partnerships with local merchants accounted for 20% of the revenue of the retail arm in the Covid-hit quarter. Reliance Retail saw its revenue increase 19% to INR 33,566 Cr in the first quarter of FY22, compared to the corresponding quarter last year.
Jio Platforms also highlighted in the quarterly result that necessary approvals have been received for initiating 5G field trials, and its collaboration with Google Cloud would develop 5G computing solutions across gaming, healthcare, education, and video entertainment.
Furthermore, Jio and Microsoft have operationalised an initial 10 MW capacity of Jio-Azure cloud data centers across Jamnagar and Nagpur. Onboarding of pilot customers across SMEs and start-ups is underway with further enhancement in capacity would be done in subsequent quarters. However, there was no mention of messaging platform WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook, which invested INR 43,574 Cr in Jio Platforms last year.
