Earnings Preview: Ahead of IPO, Jio Platforms to see steady Q1 growth on subscriber gains

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Jio Platforms is heading into its first earnings report since filing for a potential blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) with a familiar telecom problem: how to keep growth moving without raising prices.

The digital arm of Reliance Industries Ltd is expected to report steady growth for the April-June quarter, helped by subscriber additions, higher data consumption, home broadband expansion and two extra billing days versus the previous quarter. The performance will test whether Jio can continue to lift revenue through volume and premiumization while waiting for its next tariff hike.

Jio Platforms will report its first-quarter FY27 (Q1FY27) earnings on 17 July, alongside parent Reliance Industries.

“We estimate Jio Platform’s revenue rose 3% q-q (quarter-on-quarter) and 13% y-y (year-on-year) to ₹39,600 crore in 1QFY27F, driven by robust net additions of 8 million subscribers in the quarter, with the total subscriber base likely rose to 532.4 million from 524.4 million at the end of 4QFY26,” said analysts at brokerage house Nomura in a note dated 7 July.

With no long-awaited tariff hike, Nomura expects Jio's average revenue per user, or Arpu, to rise by ₹3 to ₹217 a month. Two additional billing days in the June quarter versus January-March—February has 28 days—are expected to account for much of that increase.

Arpu, a key telecom metric, measures the average revenue earned per user. For now, operators are trying to raise it through premiumization rather than price increases.

Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom operator by market share, accounts for most of Jio Platforms' business. In the March quarter, net profit rose 13% year-on-year to ₹7,935 crore, while revenue increased 12.6% to ₹38,259 crore.

But the company's growth model is increasingly dependent on customers moving up the telecom ladder. Analysts say operators have been relying on migration from 2G to 4G and 5G, and from 4G to 5G, alongside higher post-paid additions and rising data consumption, to sustain growth without pricing action.

That strategy could face a new hurdle as smartphone prices rise, particularly at the entry level. Higher prices could slow feature-phone-to-smartphone upgrades and weaken the premiumization trend, analysts said.

“We expect 1QFY27 to see continued improvement in net subscriber adds, while Arpu growth should be 1%, which is lower than usual seasonality due to softer International roaming and lower premiumisation thanks to rising entry-level smartphone pricing,” analysts at brokerage house CLSA said in a note dated 11 July.

Jio's monthly Arpu rose marginally sequentially and 3.8% year-on-year to ₹214 in the March quarter. Promotional 5G offers and the absence of tariff hikes continue to limit Arpu growth.

In comparison, Bharti Airtel's Arpu stood at ₹257 in the March quarter, while Vodafone Idea reported a 1.2% sequential increase to ₹174 a month.

The earnings come weeks after Jio Platforms filed its draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), setting in motion the process for what could potentially be India's biggest IPO so far. The issue is expected to raise ₹32,000–35,000 crore, according to bankers and analysts.

The company plans to raise capital through a fresh issue of 270 million equity shares with a face value of ₹10 each. Existing investors will not sell shares in the IPO. Jio plans to use up to ₹27,500 crore of the proceeds to prepay certain borrowings taken by its material subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.

That makes the earnings report an early test of the growth story investors will be asked to buy into.

Beyond connectivity, Jio's digital services business—spanning cloud, managed services, content and devices—is gaining traction. According to the company's draft IPO papers, Jio is aggressively expanding its home broadband footprint through 5G fixed wireless access...