BENGALURU (Reuters) -Reliance Jio Infocomm, India’s biggest telecom carrier by subscribers, reported its slowest profit growth in seven quarters on Friday, hurt by higher expenses and a lack of recent tariff hikes.
Jio, the telecom arm of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, said net profit rose 12% to 50.58 billion rupees ($608 million) in the second quarter.
The company said revenue from operations climbed 9.9% to 247.5 billion rupees. However, expenses jumped 9% to 180.63 billion rupees.
Jio did not announce any tariff hikes in the quarter.
It is looking to further boost user growth with the recent launch of a 4G budget-friendly phone and wireless broadband Jio AirFiber.
Reliance Industries is scheduled to report its results later in the day. ($1 = 83.2150 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Rama Venkat and Sethuraman NR in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
