On Friday, post market hours, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) reported its highest-ever quarterly net profit at Rs 11,262 crore for the July-September 2019 period. The Mukesh Ambani-led oil-to-telecom conglomerate's net profit for the second quarter of the financial year 2019-20 was 18.3 percent higher than Rs 9,516 crore reported in the same period a year ago.

Key takeaways

• The record-high profit was a result of strong performance from its retail and digital services business. Clearly, the company's strategy of offsetting its weakness in the oil and gas segment with its consumer-focused businesses has been working.
• RIL's revenue rose by 4.8 percent to Rs 1.63 trillion from Rs 1.53 crore a year ago.
• Reliance Retail's revenue crossed Rs 40,000 crore for the first time. It was reported at Rs 41,202 for the quarter under review, a 27 percent jump from Rs 32,436 crore a year ago.
• Reliance Retail's operating profit jumped 67 percent YoY to Rs 2,322 crore in the July-September period.
• Reliance Jio crossed the Rs 5,000 crore quarterly EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization). Net profit for Q2 was 11 percent high YoY to Rs 990 crore.
• Jio's ARPU (average revenue per user), a key measure in a telecom company's performance, fell to Rs 120 from Rs 122 in the previous quarter, marking its seventh consecutive quarterly fall.
• RIL said that Reliance Retail has emerged the fastest-growing retailer globally to cross the $20 billion annual revenue mark and that all core retail consumption baskets grew in strong double-digits.
• Jio emerged as a leader both in terms of subscribers and revenue, by the end of the quarter.
• RIL's revenue from petrochemicals operations fell by 11.90 percent to Rs 38,538 crore for the quarter from the previous year. It saw a 6.40 percent drop in EBIT, while margins rose to 19.70 percent from 18.60 percent in a year ago.
• The company made its highest-ever production of petrochemicals at 9.9 million tonnes (mmt) for the September-ended quarter against 9.4 mmt in the same period a year ago.
• On Friday, ahead of the market hours, RIL's share price touch 52-week high of Rs 1,427.90 apiece, soaring the conglomerate's market cap to over Rs 9 trillion. It was the first Indian company to cross the mark.