Jio’s Q4 revenue, Arpu may fall; subscriber addition saw a pickup
Live MintReliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is expected to report a sequential decline in revenue for the March quarter, with key metrics such as average revenue per user likely to fall as much as Rs12-14, as operators scrapped interconnect usage charge, which contributes 7-8% in revenues across the industry, from 1 January. Reliance Jio’s net subscriber addition stood at 21 million in the first nine months of FY21, a sharp decline from an average of 100 million per annum in the first four years of the operator’s launch in September 2016, ICICI Securities said in a report, adding that, “this looks considerably weak”. While the new JioPhone plans, introduced in February, show the company’s intent and focus on arresting the slowdown in net customer additions, analysts say, it would come at the cost of lower Arpu, ruling out the possibility of any tariff hike in the near future and hurting earnings growth. Jio would need tariff hike to sustain its earnings growth and offset rise in network operating costs due to payment to InvITs, and rise in costs on account of recent spectrum investment,” said ICICI Securities.