Jio Platforms chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani attributed the growth to “key consumption baskets” off the back of the festive season and lockdowns easing in India. “Our digital services business has delivered broad-based, sustainable, and profitable growth through improved customer engagement and subscriber mix,” Ambani said. The revenue growth culminated in the company’s net profit similarly seeing an uptick, with that figure rising 9% year-on-year to ₹3,795 crore ($511 million). Jio Platform’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the quarter was also its highest ever, ₹10,008 crore ($1.3 billion), marking an 18% increase. Looking at Jio Platform’s telecommunications performance, through its subsidiary Reliance Jio, the company reported its average revenue per user (ARPU) for the third quarter improved to ₹151.6 per subscriber per month as against ₹143.6 in the second quarter. Quarterly total data traffic and voice traffic, meanwhile, rose to 23.4 million GB and 1.15 trillion minutes, respectively, which represent 48% and 17% year-on-year increases. At the end of 2021, Jio Platform’s total customer base was 421 million, which amounted to a net addition of 10.2 million customers on a year-on-year basis. This is an 8.4 million dip compared to the second quarter, however, with the company attributing the quarter-to-quarter customer decline to “subscribers with inconsistent engagement and lower-end subscribers”. In reporting its third-quarter performance, Jio Platforms said it has continued planning its 5G network with a specific focus on finding which locations in India have high consumption and high perception. Providing an update on this planning, the company said it has concluded 5G coverage planning in 1,000 Indian cities. The telco added it has repaid ₹30,791 crore to the Department of Telecom to clear all of its spectrum payments liabilities, including interest, from prior to its expenditure during the spectrum auction conducted in March last year. The company estimates that the repayment will result in interest cost savings of around ₹1,200 crores annually, at the current interest rates. Reliance Jio’s 5G rollout is behind schedule relative to Ambani’s promise in late 2020 that his telco would have a 5G network by the end of 2021, with the telco currently set to roll out later this year. Reliance Jio’s holding company, Reliance Industries, similarly saw strong gains during the third quarter with ₹209,823 crore ($28.2 billion) in gross revenue and a net profit of ₹20,539 crore ($2.8 billion), which are both 52% and 38% year-on-year improvements, respectively. Outside of owning Jio Platforms, Reliance Industries holds a number of businesses across energy, grocery, oil, and retail.   

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