Reliance Industries, the telecom-retail-to-oil major, has announced a record quarterly profit and EBITDA for the quarter ended December 2024 (Q3FY25) with bottomline growing in double-digit on strong growth in digital services and retail businesses.
"Robust growth in digital services business was led by sustained subscriber addition and consistent improvement in customer engagement metrics," Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director said, adding the retail segment delivered a strong performance, with noteworthy contribution from all formats.
Reliance shares rallied 4.2 percent in calendar year 2025, to close at Rs 1,266.45 on January 16.
Here are 10 key highlights of the quarterly earnings:
1) Profit
RIL has reported a record quarterly consolidated profit at Rs 21,930 crore for the October-December 2024 quarter, growing 11.7 percent over Rs 19,641 crore net in the year-ago period.
2) Topline
The consolidated revenue for Q3FY25 increased by 7.7 percent to Rs 2,67,186 crore compared to same period previous fiscal, with double-digit growth in Jio Platforms. Reliance Retail Ventures and the oil-to-chemicals businesses also supported topline.
On the operating front, Reliance Industries has recorded consolidated EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) at Rs 48,003 crore for third quarter of FY25, increasing 7.8 percent over the corresponding period in the previous financial year, with nearly 19 percent growth in Jio Platforms EBITDA and close to 10 percent increase in Reliance Retail.
The EBITDA margin expanded by 10 bps to 18 percent in the same period.
Jio Platforms has seen a robust growth during the quarter with profit growing 26 percent on-year to Rs 6,861 crore in the quarter ended December 2024 backed by revenue and EBITDA.
Its revenue increased by 19.2 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 38,750 crore during the quarter due to continuing flow through of tariff revisions for mobility services, and healthy growth in homes and digital services businesses.
Net subscriber addition in Q3FY25 was 3.3 million and monthly churn moderated to 2.0 percent, with customer base reaching to 482.1 million, up from 470.9 million in Q3FY24.
EBITDA grew by 18.8 percent YoY to Rs 16,585 crore driven by higher subscriber base, improving ARPU (average revenue per user) and favourable mix, with margin at 50.1 percent for the quarter.
The ARPU stood at Rs 203.3 per subscriber per month, increasing sharply from Rs 181.7 in Q3FY24, and Rs 195.1 in Q2FY25, with sustained impact of tariff hike and better subscriber mix.
"Residual impact of tariff hike is still to play out," Reliance said.
The company further said Jio continued to drive 5G uptake in India with over 170 million subscribers on True5G network, accounting for 40 percent of Jio’s wireless traffic.
Further, more than 70 percent of incremental JioAirFiber additions are coming from the top 1,000 cities/towns. Overall pace of home connect for Jio has continued to accelerate with total installed base of 17 million.
JioAICloud, the AI powered cloud service was launched for consumers during the quarter offering up to 100 GB of free cloud storage, while during the India Mobile Congress 2024, Jio unveiled JioBrain, the versatile Machine Learning platform for seamless integration across operations, Reliance said.
Reliance Retail Ventures has registered a 10 percent YoY growth in profit at Rs 3,458 crore for the third quarter of FY25, with footfalls increasing 5 percent to over 296 million and customer base growing to 338 million, making Reliance Retail one of the most preferred retailers in the country.
Its revenue soared to Rs 90,333 crore, increasing 8.8 percent YoY and 18.4 percent QoQ, with growth across consumption baskets driven by festive buying and wedding season.
The EBITDA increased by 9.5 percent YoY to Rs 6,828 crore in Q3FY25 on improved operational efficiencies and superior store operating metrics, with margin expanding by 20 bps to 8.6 percent. The sequential increase in EBITDA was 16.7 percent.
The retail business opened 779 new stores during the quarter, taking the total store count to 19,102 with area under operation at 77.4 million square feet.
7) O2C
The oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business revenue improved by 6 percent YoY to Rs 1.49 lakh crore primarily due to higher production meant for sale as compared to Q3FY24 which had planned maintenance and inspection shutdown of major units.
"Revenue growth was also supported by robust domestic demand and product placement. Domestic fuel retailing volume increased significantly with 43.7 percent growth in MS and 22.8 percent growth in HSD," Reliance Industries said.
The segment's EBITDA increased by 2.4 percent on-year to Rs 14,402 crore supported by higher volumes and operational flexibility. Efficient feedstock sourcing, higher domestic product placement and improved polymer deltas offset weak fuel cracks.
"The O2C business showcased its innate resilience, registering growth even in this prolonged period of volatility in the global energy markets. Refining margins recovered sequentially, with petrochemical deltas exhibiting a mixed trend," Mukesh Ambani said.
The total throughput grew by 8 percent YoY to 20.2 million metric tons (MMT), and production meant for sale increased by 9.1 percent to 17.9 MMT compared to year-ago period.
8) Oil & Gas
The oil & gas exploration and production segment recorded revenue at Rs 6,370 crore for the quarter ended December 2024, down 5.2 percent YoY mainly on account of lower volume of gas and condensate in KGD6, lower realisation for CBM gas and condensate. This was partly offset by increase in CBM gas volumes and marginal increase in the KGD6 gas price.
Its EBITDA decreased by 4.1 percent to Rs 5,565 crore during the same period largely due to decline in KG D6 volumes and price realisations. "The average price realised for KGD6 gas was $9.74 per million British thermal unit (MMBTU) in Q3FY25 against $9.66 per MMBTU in Q3FY24.
The average price realised for CBM gas was $10.58 per MMBTU against $15.55 per MMBTU in the same period," Reliance said.
Reliance recorded natural gas production of 68.5 billion of cubic feet equivalent (BCFe) from the KG D6 block in Q3FY25, down 5.3% YoY, while the CBM (coal bed methane) production at 2.7 BCFe grew by 35% over a year-ago period.
9) Balance Sheet
The company's outstanding debt stood at Rs 3.5 lakh crore as of Q3FY25, up by Rs 14,116 crore over the September quarter, and cash & cash equivalents during the same period increased by Rs 15,089 crore to Rs 2.35 lakh crore. As a result, the net debt was at Rs 1.15 lakh crore, declining by Rs 973 crore compared to previous quarter.
The net debt to EBITDA ratio dropped to 0.6 in December 2024 quarter, from 0.66 in September 2024 quarter.
10) Capex
Capital expenditure (excluding amount incurred towards spectrum) for the quarter ended December 2024 was Rs 32,259 crore, against Rs 30,102 crore in the year-ago period, and Rs 34,022 crore in the September quarter.
Disclaimer: MoneyControl is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.
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