Reports confirm that the combined earnings of Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd have surpassed the revenues of RIL’s petrochemicals business, which had been the company’s second-largest revenue generator for a long time, after oil refining and marketing. The results indicate a change for the company, as it was earlier identified by its petrochemicals and refining businesses only.
According to the reports, RIL’s media, telecom and retail businesses had recorded a joint revenue of ₹44,615 crore during the July to September quarter, overtaking the ₹43,745 crore registered by its petrochemicals segment. With earnings of ₹98,760 crore, refining and marketing continue to remain RIL’s largest revenue generator.
Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail revenues had grown by 52% and 121% respectively during the quarter, in comparison with previous year numbers, while petrochemicals earnings grew 56%. RIL’s consolidated revenues for this quarter amounted to ₹1.56 trillion, which is a 54.5% rise from ₹1.01 trillion a year ago.
Reliance Jio’s revenues grew to ₹10,942 crore, as it added about 37 million subscribers in the quarter as compared with 28.7 million in the previous quarter. RIL’s media business witnessed a fourfold growth in the quarter from a year back, with earnings reaching to ₹1,237 crore.
Sources say that RIL has invested almost $31 billion into its digital services business, driving out smaller telecom companies and pushing Idea Cellular Ltd and Vodafone India Ltd into forming a merger. Reliance Jio is estimated to overtake Vodafone Idea and now second placed Airtel to become India’s largest telecom company by the end of 2018, the sources mentioned.
Reliance Retail, which operates across a number of product formats and categories and formats, had its revenue more than doubled to ₹32,436 crore. The brand currently has over 9,100 stores in more than 5,800 towns and cities in the country. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani has set an annual growth target of 30% for Reliance Digital over the next 10 years.
