India’s Reliance profits drop on weak oil-to-chemicals arm

TDT | Manama                                                      

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Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries reported a drop in quarterly profits on Monday, weighed down by its core oil-to-chemicals arm even as its telecom division posted healthy growth.The oil-to-telecoms giant is led by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani and is India’s most valuable company by market capitalisation.

Net profit attributable to owners of the company came in at 165.63 billion rupees ($1.97 billion) for the July-September quarter, a 4.78 percent drop from the 173.94 billion rupees reported in the same period last year.

Revenues from operations for Reliance came in at 2.35 trillion rupees, barely higher than the numbers reported a year ago. Despite an aggressive expansion into retail, telecoms and green energy, the firm still relies heavily on its traditional oil business to make money.

Chairman Ambani, in a statement, acknowledged there was “weak contribution” from the oil-to-chemicals business, which was impacted by “unfavourable global demand-supply dynamics”. The conglomerate’s earnings release also pointed out that crude oil benchmarks fell year-on-year due to “lower than expected demand growth, especially in China”.

Reliance’s telecom arm, however, was a bright spot. The division reported a 23 percent on-year rise in net profit for the September quarter, helped by a bump in subscribers and an increase in average revenue per user due to tariff hikes. Its retail arm reported a one percent decline in gross revenue despite store footfalls increasing to 297 million, up 14 percent year-on-year from the 260 million recorded last year.