Mumbai: Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries reported better-than-expected profit for the first three months of the year Friday, boosted by a strong performance in its consumer-facing businesses.
The retail-to-refining 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 194.07 billion rupees ($2.27 billion) for the quarter ending March 31 -- a 2.4 percent rise from the 189.51 billion rupees reported in same period last year.
Analysts had on average estimated a bottomline of 184.71 billion rupees, according to Bloomberg.
Revenue from operations rose 9.9 percent year-on-year to 2.64 trillion rupees.
Despite an aggressive expansion into retail, telecoms and green energy, Reliance still relies heavily on its traditional oil business to make money.
The conglomerate's oil-to-chemicals division had struggled for most of 2024 as global uncertainty upset the industry's demand-supply dynamics.
Chairman Ambani said in a statement that the vertical posted a "resilient performance" despite "considerable volatility in energy markets".
"Significant demand-supply imbalances in downstream chemicals markets have led to multi-year low margins," he said.
Reliance's retail and telecom arms, however, remained bright spots.
Gross revenue from the conglomerate's retail business was up 15.7 percent year-on-year to 886.2 billion rupees, helped in part by the early onset of summer which boosted air conditioner and cooler sales, according to a company press release.
The telecoms unit's average revenue per user, a key metric of top line growth, rose 13.5 percent year-on-year to hit 206.2 rupees, on the back of the "continued impact" of tariff hikes and a "better subscriber mix".
Reliance Industries shares closed flat in Mumbai ahead of the earnings announcement on Friday.
