Jio Platforms Q3 profit rises 11% as higher-value users drive growth

IPO-bound Jio Platforms reported steady growth in the October-December quarter (Q3FY26) on Friday, maintaining its recent trend of modest sequential gains driven by subscriber additions, home broadband growth, and a shift toward higher-value customers.

Jio Platforms, which houses Reliance Industries Ltd’s telecom and digital services business, reported 3.4% sequential and 11.2% year-on-year growth in net profit to ₹7,629 crore during the quarter. The growth in profit, however, was restricted due to higher finance cost, which rose 67% YoY during the quarter owing to the use of 5G spectrum assets.

The company’s revenue from operations rose 2.5% quarter-on-quarter and 12.7% year-on-year to ₹37,262 crore, in-line with the street estimates. Jio said the revenue growth was driven by robust subscriber addition, Arpu growth and scale-up of digital services.

In the absence of tariff hikes, analysts had expected the results to be largely uneventful, with stable growth.

In the September quarter, the company's revenue from operations grew 3.7% sequentially and 14.6% year-on-year to ₹36,332 crore. It clocked a net profit of ₹7,375 crore in the quarter, with a 3.7% sequential and 12.8% year-on-year growth.

“This quarter, Jio expanded its subscriber base further, through attractive propositions enabled by its comprehensive, indigenous technology stack tailored for Indian markets,” Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries said in a statement.

Jio’s steady performance is significant as it plans to list on the stock exchanges by mid-2026. A higher Arpu, short for average revenue per user, and improved profitability would make it more attractive to investors and support a higher valuation for the IPO.

Jio’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) rose 16.4% on-year and 2.9% sequentially to ₹19,303 crore in the December quarter. Ebitda margin rose 170 basis points on-year and marginally sequentially. The company said 16.4% Ebitda growth was driven by higher revenue and margin improvement.

Telecom business

Reliance Jio is India’s largest telecom operator by market share and accounts for most of Jio Platforms' business. In the December quarter, Reliance Jio's revenue from operations on a standalone basis grew 11.8% year-on-year and 2.8% quarter-on-quarter to ₹32,751 crore. Net profit rose 10.7% on-year and 2.9% sequentially to ₹7,173 crore.

The company’s mainstay telecom vertical, housed under Reliance Jio Infocomm, saw its Arpu continue to rise during the quarter, driven by higher data consumption and a favourable subscriber mix as more users migrated from 2G to 4G/5G and upgraded to higher data tiers.

Monthly Arpu rose 1.1% sequentially to ₹213.7 from ₹211.4 at the end of September. Promotional 5G offers and the absence of tariff hikes continue to restrict growth in the company’s Arpu.

In comparison, Bharti Airtel's Arpu was at ₹256 at the end of September. The company is yet to declare its earnings for the December quarter.

“Indian telecom operators have been raising tariffs by 15-20% once every two years, and we expect the next tariff hike by June/July 2026. The last three meaningful tariff hikes happened in July 2024, Nov 2021 and Nov 2019,” brokerage house BNP Paribas said in a note dated 12 January.

Reliance Jio net added 8.9 million subscribers during the December quarter, taking its subscriber base to 515.3 million. The company had added 8.3 million subscribers in the preceding quarter. Its total 5G subscriber base reached 253 million as of December end. 5G now accounts for 53% of total wireless traffic for Jio driven by increase in customer engagement.

"Jio's over 500 million subscriber base, deep customer insights and pan India distribution network will empower Reliance Intelligence to achieve its aim to make India not just AI-enabled but AI-empowered - where every citizen and enterprise can harness AI tools to create, innovate and grow," said Akash M Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm.

The company said Jio Airfiber becomes first FWA service globally to surpass 10 million subscribers. As of December end, the company's AirFiber users topped 11.5 million. During the quarter, total connected homes with fixed broadband increased to 25.3 million for Jio.