Reliance Industries Q4 profit stays flat

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Monday reported an almost flat March quarter net profit, while its annual earnings hit a record high on the back of a recovery in its core oil and petrochemicals business and sustained momentum across the consumer-facing telecom and retail businesses.

The oil-to-telecom-and-retail conglomerate’s consolidated net profit stood at Rs 18,951 crore, or Rs 28.01 per share, in January-March quarter of the 2023-24 fiscal compared to Rs 19,299 crore, or Rs 28.52 a share, a year ago, according to a company’s stock exchange filing.

The profit was, however, higher quarter-on-quarter when compared to Rs 17,265 crore in October-December period.

For the full fiscal FY24 (April 2023 to March 2024), Reliance posted a record net profit of Rs 69,621 crore as compared to Rs 66,702 crore earnings in the preceding financial year.

Reliance also became the first Indian company to hit Rs 10 lakh crore turnover in FY24 when revenue from operations rose 2.6 per cent from Rs 9.74 lakh crore in 2022-23.

The oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, the main milch cow, posted a rise in profitability annually as well as sequentially, while retail business’ earnings rose on new store openings despite lower footfalls. The firm helmed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani saw telecom revenues soar as it outpaced competition in subscriber addition and data traffic.

While quarterly EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was up 14.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 47,150 crore, registering growth across all businesses, the revenue from operations rose almost 11 per cent to Rs 2.64 lakh crore.