Reliance beats Street, becomes first private player to cross Rs 10,000 cr net profit

New Delhi: Reliance Industries (RIL) on Thursday beat the Street estimates by posting a record third quarter net profit of Rs 10,250 crore, which made the Mukesh Ambani-led petrochemical giant the first private sector company to cross the Rs 10,000 crore-mark in quarterly net profit.

During the October-December quarter, the conglomerate’s ambitious telecom business, Reliance Jio, clocked a 65 per cent rise in profit at Rs 831 crore.

The operating revenue of Reliance Jio surged by 50.9 per cent to Rs 10,383 crore during the October-December 2018 period compared with Rs 6,879 crore in the year-ago period. Reliance’s consolidated revenue grew 56.4 per cent to Rs 1.6 lakh crore.

Commenting on the results, Mukesh D Ambani, chairman and managing director, said: “The journey of Jio has been truly remarkable and has surpassed all expectations. The Jio family is now 280 million-strong and growing on one of the world’s largest mobile data networks.”

The telecoms business is central to Ambani’s ambition to make Reliance’s consumer businesses as big as its energy operations, which contribute the bulk of group revenue and profit. RIL’s refining and petrochemicals unit, which contribute around three-quarters of overall revenue and profits, revenue rose 47 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively.

On a standalone basis, which includes primarily refining and petrochemicals, Reliance’s third-quarter profit rose 5.6 per cent to Rs 8,928 crore.

Gross refining margin (GRM), the profit earned on each barrel of crude processed, was $8.8 per barrel for the quarter, outperforming the benchmark Singapore complex margin by $4.5 per barrel. The benchmark GRMs have come down to multi-year lows in the third quarter to below $2 per barrel, hitting all refining companies globally.

Reliance’s refinery in Gujarat is the world’s biggest single-location refinery, with a capacity to process 1.36 million barrels per day of crude.

"In our endeavour to consistently create more value for our country and stakeholders, our company has become the first Indian private sector corporate to cross Rs 10,000 crore quarterly profits milestone," Ambani said.

Product prices for the refining and petrochemicals business increased in line with the 10.4 per cent higher average than the Brent crude oil price. The higher volumes in petrochemical business were on account of stabilisation and ramp up of new petrochemical facilities, the company said.

Retail business and digital services business recorded an increase of 89 per cent and 51 per cent in revenue, respectively, during the quarter compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

RIL saw Ebit for its petrochemical segment in the December quarter surge 42.9 per cent year-on-year to a record high of Rs 8,221 crore.

The total income raked in by RIL during the December quarter of 2018-19 reached Rs 1,62,759 crore.

The same for the previous quarter was at Rs 1,47,268 crore, whereas the figure from the year-ago period was Rs 1,04,718 crore.

The company saw its exports increase by 35.2 per cent to Rs 62,378 crore during Q3 FY19, according to the regulatory filing by RIL.