BENGALURU (Reuters) -Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom arm of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, reported its slowest profit and revenue growth in six quarters on Friday, hit by higher expenses and a lack of recent tariff hikes.
Jio, India’s biggest telecom carrier by subscribers, said net profit climbed to 48.63 billion rupees ($593.2 million) in April-June from 43.35 billion rupees a year earlier.
Its revenue from operations rose 9.9% to 240.42 billion rupees, while total expenses increased 9%.
Jio has been investing heavily in network infrastructure to grab a bigger market share. Earlier this month, it launched a cheap 4G feature phone to tap the country’s vast remote markets, which are still on slower mobile networks.
The launch of the phone is seen as a way to avoid any hit to its overall subscriber base from a likely tariff hike in September, according to Ambit Capital.
Reliance Industries is scheduled to report its results later in the day. ($1 = 81.9772 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Anil D’Silva)
