Ril: Reliance Q1 profit falls 6% to ₹18,258 crore on higher costs

MUMBAI: Reliance Industries (RIL) reported a decline in the first quarter’s profit and revenue due to higher expenses and lower price realisations from its refining and petrochemicals business. Profit fell 6% to Rs 18,258 crore in Q1FY24, while revenue decreased 5% to Rs 2. 1 lakh crore.

India’s largest company in terms of market value attributed the drop in profit to higher finance costs and increased depreciation and the decreased revenue to “sharp decline” in refining and petrochemicals revenues with “31% fall in crude oil prices”. It said the decline was, however, partially offset by the growth recorded by its retail, digital and oil & gas businesses.
Operating profit, a yardstick for underlying business performance, edged up 2. 4% to Rs 40,425 crore. Operating pro-fit of its refining and petrochemicals (now known as oil-2chemicals) business declined 23% to Rs 15,271 crore, while operating profit of digital (Jio) climbed 17% to Rs 13,721 crore due to strong growth in revenue and margins. Reuters reported that Q1FY24 was Jio’s slowest profit and revenue growth period in six quarters. Jio’s average revenue per user (ARPU) — a key metric that influences income — was at Rs 181 in Q1FY24, up nearly 3%. ARPU is the total revenue of the telecom operator divided by the number of users on its network. Launched in 2016, Jio had about 449 million customers as on June 30, 2023 and sawdata and voice traffic growth of 28% and 7% on its network. ARPU improved because of better subscriber mix and ramp up of wireline business, RIL said.

Operating profit of the retail business rose 34% to Rs 5,151 crore, led by well-rounded growth across all consumer baskets.
Reliance Retail had 18,446 outlets as on June 30, 2023. “Reliance’s strong operating and financial performance this quarter demonstrates the resilience of our diversified portfolio of businesses,” said company chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani.
The consumer businesses (Jio and retail) accounted for 47% of RIL’s operating profit in Q1FY24. Operating profit of the media business zoomed 57% to Rs 108 crore. RIL’s debt at the end of Q1FY24 stood at Rs 3. 18 lakh crore, and it had Rs 1. 92 lakh crore in cash and cash equivalents on its books.