Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 15% drop in its net profit for the December quarter as higher finance costs and depreciation negated strong operating performance.
The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate’s consolidated net profit of Rs 15,792 crore or Rs 23.34 per share, in October-December compares with Rs 18,549 crore, or Rs 28.08 a share, earnings in the same period a year ago, according to company’s stock exchange filing.
While finance cost soared 36.4% to Rs 5,201 crore, other expenses were up by Rs 5,421 crore. Debt, which the company is using to fund its massive green energy foray and expansion in telecom and retail business, soared almost Rs 59,000 crore to Rs 3,03,530 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal year when compared to the year-ago period.
Depreciation increased by 32.6% to Rs 10,187 crore due to an expanded asset base across all the businesses and higher network utilization in the digital services business, a company statement said.
Its gross revenue was up 15% at Rs 240,963 crore.
Sequentially, the net profit was up 15% from Rs 13,656 crore in July-September 2022.
Operationally, all businesses were firing all cylinders. EBITDA at Rs 38,460 crore, was up 13.5% year-on-year led by consumer businesses and higher oil and gas prices aiding the upstream segment.
While digital services, which includes telecom, EBITDA at Rs 12,900 crore was 26% higher, retail EBITDA was up 25% at Rs 4,786 crore. Oil and gas EBITDA almost doubled to Rs 3,880 crore. However, the mainstay oil refining and petrochemicals business, called O2C, was muted with a 3% rise in segment EBITDA to Rs 13,926 crore.
