Reliance Jio Infocomm on Friday dialled a net profit of 28 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise for the September quarter at Rs 4,518 crore. The telco’s net profit stood at Rs 3528 crore in the same period previous fiscal year, the company said in a regulatory filing.


The revenue from operations jumped 20.2 per cent to Rs 22,521 crore for the just ended quarter, from Rs 18,735 crore in the year-ago period.


The Q2 scorecard comes amid large-scale network deployments across the country for 5G services, the much-talked about next-generation technology that promises to ring in a new era of turbocharged speeds, lag-free connectivity, and new-age applications in India, the world's second-biggest smartphone market after China.


Earlier this month, Jio announced it will start the beta trial of its 5G services in four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi from October 5 with a select set of customers.


Meanwhile, Jio surpassed BSNL in August to become the largest fixed-line service provider in India, a report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Tuesday said.


This is the first time since the beginning of telecom services in the country that a private operator has gained the top spot position in the wireline segment.


The Trai’s subscriber report for August stated that Jio's wireline subscriber base reached 73.52 lakh, while that of BSNL was at 71.32 lakh.


BSNL has been providing wireline services since the last 22 years, whereas Jio launched its wireline offering 3 years ago. The wireline subscribers in the country grew to 2.59 crore in August from 2.56 crore in July.


The growth was dominated by the private sector, with Jio adding 2.62 lakh new customers, Bharti Airtel 1.19 lakh, Vodafone Idea (Vi) 4,202, and Tata Teleservices 3,769.


State-run telecom firms BSNL and MTNL lost 15,734 and 13,395 wireline users, respectively, in August. The overall telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 117.5 crore in August, with Jio adding most of the new customers and rural areas growing at a higher rate than urban centres, according to the Trai report.


"The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 117.366 crore at the end of July-22 to 117.508 crore at the end of August-22, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.12 per cent," Trai's subscriber report for August 2022 said. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscriptions were 0.10 and 0.14 per cent, respectively.


On the other hand, JioBook is finally available for purchase for all. The maiden laptop from Reliance was first showcased at the India Mobile Congress 2022 and is now listed on Reliance Digital at a heavily discounted price. So far, the JioBook was only limited to government employees but it’s now available for purchase by the general public.