Reliance Industries Ltd

NSE:RELIANCE

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good evening, and welcome to the First Quarter FY '24 Financial Results Presentation of Reliance Industries Limited. I'll now request Srikanth to walk you through our consolidated performance, followed by a deep dive on each of our business segments. Over to you, Srikanth.

[Srikanth Venkatachari, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Srini. Starting off with financial performance, EBITDA at INR 42,000 crores, up 5.1% year-on-year. This growth really masks the growth that we have seen in Jio, which is 17% in retail of 34%, in upstream of 47%. And the fact that, of course, the -- our O2C was down 23%.

The -- as you know, the context being first quarter FY '23 was an exceptional quarter, given the dislocation coming on account of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, which has driven margins to historic highs. And as you know, good to see it was the highest ever earnings -- and from then on, as you know, the cracks have declined between 60% to 70% PVC in petrochemicals was down 35%. So the context being that it was an abnormally high quarter in that same time last year. And those numbers are corrections or per say -- see that you see is more a reflection of the highs that we reached there. So as I highlighted, that was more than offset by the strong performance across our businesses.

Net profit at INR 18,258 crores, lower by 6% on the back of higher depreciation and finance costs. On the consumer business side, growth continues to be strong with an expanded physical and digital footprint. We have 314 million transactions, which is up 43%. Very strong growth across formats, grocery, especially at 59%. And when you look at Jio, the highlight was the addition of 9.2 million customers and the good adoption of 5G. On the energy business side, I talked about the fall in tracks, and I'd highlight that the extent of the fall that we have seen -- and -- but when you look at the numbers per say, they are -- if you look at it over a 3-year average basis, it is higher than that.

And we have seen strong performance coming on the oil and gas side, both realization as well as volumes were pretty good and MJ1 production has started. On the Retail side, again, as I said, 34% growth on EBITDA on a year-on-year basis, 20% on revenue. We continue to add and expand 555 stores, taking us close to 18,500. Different metrics made footfalls, be it registered customers, all that the traction is good. For example, registered customers are 28%, footfalls up 42%. So engagement is pretty strong. And importantly, the digital commerce and e-commerce continues to be at 18%, but on a significantly expanded revenue base. As you know, we completed Metro Cash and Carry acquisition and the integration is underway. On the digital side, EBITDA up 17%. Revenue is up 12.5%, ARPU up close to 181, which is 2.8% growth year-on-year. As I highlighted, the number of customer adds is something for us to highlight at 9.2 million customers, taking our total customer base to 48.5 billion. And when you look at data traffic continues to be strong, 28% growth with increased usage across the board.

So in a sense, Retail has benefited from the network and the infrastructure investments that we have been doing. On overseas side, EBITDA at INR 15,300 crores, as I mentioned, down 23% year-on-year by highlighting the exceptional strong year, strong year ago quarter. I also highlighted the fact that margins have been significantly lower. When you look at it from point of view of fuel cracks, clearly, still the demand is good, and it keeps the cracks at above mid-cycle levels.

However, on downstream, downstream margins have definitely been more muted given the supply overhang as well as the fact that they do see a bit of subdued demand in as far as downstream chemicals are concerned. However, having said that, the India demand environment is pretty strong. Oil demand up almost 5%, polymer up 16%, polyster up 5%. And as you have seen, there is a fairly conducive environment as far as fuel retailing is concerned. On Oil and Gas, at INR 4,015 crores of EBITDA, which is 47% higher year-on-year, benefiting both from volume and price. And our production now is at steady-state production is about close to 21 MMSCMD.

And -- as I said, production is up 18%. Price realization has been up -- it's now about 10.81%, and another 10% close to that. And we have successfully placed 29 MMSCMD of KG D6 gas, essentially signed GSPAs with our customers, and it is across a variety of businesses. So these are the numbers when you bring them together. Overall, when you look at revenues down 5%, but we must keep in mind that crude prices have been lower by 31% overall. But the fact that we had strong performance in retail and Jio has said that the revenue fall is only about 4.7%, EBITDA growth, we talked about down 5.1% and I talked about the strong traction in the consumer business side. Net profit impacted with higher finance cost in depreciation this is something that we have been telegraphing across last -- whole of last set of quarters about the increase.

But as you can see, finance cost on a quarter-on-quarter basis is almost flat. On the -- when you look at it from a Q point of view, pro -- PBT is up almost 2%. The net profit is down 14%, and I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in the previous quarter, the tax rate provision was 11.5% as we transition into the new tax regime from FY '25. So this quarter on, it is at 25%. So if the normalization of tax rate is really what explains about the quarter-on-quarter net profit fall.

So the -- this is just a pictorial representation of the bridge. You've seen the fall in O2C but across the board, you can see the other business is delivering strong performance. And also on the other side, benefiting from the fact that in same time last year, there was this impact of rising yields on the portfolio. But obviously, now it isn't there. So you can see that swing in terms of profitability. But as important is the fact that you are seeing rising contributions from our other businesses, be it REC International in Singapore or METL or Indiawin Sports, all of them have been showing strong performance, and that explains the increase on the other segment.

And this is the quarter-on-quarter bridge. Again, O2C muted or weak, but offsetting performances across the explanation remain growing the same on the other side to -- for the other segment, too.

And per capita usage is the one I would definitely highlight now at 25 GB a month. So on the net debt side, I would like to highlight that the net debt figure now reflects the merger of JFSL around INR 15,500 crores of cash and liquid investments have been transferred from RIL's consolidated balance sheet to JFSL as part of the scheme.

So now JFSL will have a total liquid asset base of INR 20,700 crores, including cash equivalents, in RIL associate Reliance Services and Holding Limited, which is now, as you know, part of JFSL.

So in short, we are talking about JFSL adding INR 20,700 crores. Net debt has remained flat despite accelerated CapEx on rollout of infrastructure in the consumer business, the CapEx for the quarter was INR 39,600 crores, which was funded largely by all the internal cash flows of INR 33,000 crores and the important point again here is it's accelerated because the rollout of 5G network is on track to be completed by December '23. With this, I'm handing it over to Kiran.

[Kiran Thomas, executive]

Thank you, Sean. Let me start the update for this quarter with our 5G rollout, which has been underway since October of last year. Happy to announce that we are ahead of time with respect to how we're looking to complete this plan. Our plan on record is to complete our pan-India rollout before the end of this calendar year, December '23. You can see pictorially already how that 5G rollout has come along.

What you see in yellow is the planned versus what you see substantially making rapid progress is what you've shown in green. 65% of the scope is already completed. And as we speak more than 90% of the census towns are already covered by Jio's 5G signal. If you look at the number of sites which are deployed 115,000 5G sites already deployed in Pan-India, which roughly translates to nearly 700,000 5G cells, which is contributing to this rollout. So all in all, we are on track to complete what is going to be the fastest 5G rollout anywhere in the world, creating a pan-India coverage for a large country like India, within just over a year.

If you look at what that has translated to, this entire 5G leadership that we are establishing is also resulting in accelerated customer acquisition numbers. If you look at how the net additions have looked quarter-on-quarter, you can see that it has been growing quite healthily. When we start our rollout in late last year, the number was around 5.3 million net adds. Currently then it grew to nearly 6.5 million. And now we are approaching the 10 million mark of net adds. In fact, this number is nearly 1.7x of what it was just a couple of quarters ago. And obviously, this is the net add picture, but if you look at even from a retention perspective and also net porting coming from other operators, all of this is being driven by the superior network quality that is being established through both the 5G and the 4G deployments, which are underway.

So if you look at also how this number has grown year-on-year subscriber growth in a climate where the overall industry growth is very nearly Zero, pretty flat growth. What you're seeing is while the rest of the industry has seen de-growth of nearly 3.7%, that has largely been driven by nearly 7% growth year-on-year in Jio subscriber base. And if you look at the net potents, we were about more than 2.5x the net potents for us as compared to near competitor.

While the 5G growth is really driving the top end with respect to quality customers, people who are really keen to upgrade their phones and take advantage of this network. At the bottom of the pyramid, which is really this long-standing vision, which has also been shared by our Chairman, pretty early, which is to make India 2G-Mukt. I think just recently, we announced this product, which is called Jio Bharat. This is a unique go-to-market approach where we have designed this instrument which can be delivered at under INR 1,000 price point with respect to the phone. But unlike in the past, what we are doing is really creating an ecosystem, so not just us, but this designed by Jio product is now being supported by multiple OEMs. And all of these are being created in India, the entire supply chain and the assembly is being done in India through multiple OEMs with Jio as the technology provider.

So it has really been received well in the recent past few days. Our idea is to quickly deploy about 1 million of these devices through our own offering as well as through the OEM partners and to learn from it and adapt in a very agile way, improve this product rapidly and continue that growth. We are pretty confident that this device both from a price point perspective and also from completely disruptive offerings. So it supports video streaming, including live video streaming on such an affordable device and also things like UPI. So really the India's track coming to life even at this price point on the device.

So all in all, this entire package maybe it translates into welcoming what used to be 2G customers stuck with 2G devices on to now the full 4G ecosystem while still having the same level of affordability that they had with 2G devices. So we are really looking forward to learning from this initial deployment and to really push ahead that vision of 2G-Mukt India as quickly as possible.

JioFiber coming to our home rollout. Today, glad to announce that of all the wired broadband net ads, which are happening in the country, JioFiber is driving nearly 80% of that net adds. And that has largely been driven by, obviously, a superior product offering but also very competitive and very innovative tariff plans, which have really made it more attractive to customers. And if you look at what this has led to is nearly a 50% a year-on-year growth in the subscriber base that we have. Also, the good news is nearly 98% of the new additions are coming on the postpaid plan, which obviously means a higher quality customer base as well as, obviously, higher stickiness. We have also really pushed to accelerate this rollout through a partnership program. So really, we are partnering with the local cable operators as one of the channels, they have deep presence into the towns of India. They have great relationships and obviously, they have a physical presence in those catchments.

So really, we are looking now that partnership to really accelerate this rollout. Already, we have partnerships live in more than 1,000 towns and that's also really one of the secrets behind how we've been able to grow this fast. Of course, in terms of even data, this growth while -- the growth has been around 50% year-on-year. But if you see the data traffic on JioFiber that has grown even higher, which has largely been driven by even higher engagement of the customers over the past year.

Looking forward, obviously, we have spoken about this in the past updates. But while the fiber rollout is accelerating. We are also looking to even accelerate that further by using what we call AirFiber, which is delivering fiber-like experiences using wireless. And while we have the 5G rollout underway. What we have done is we have created a very dedicated slide because, as you know, we are a stand-alone network start around 5G architecture, which allows things like network slicing. So we have created a dedicated network slice for home connectivity in such a way that it does not conflict with obviously the mobility capacity that they're also rolling out. So in a way, we have created two lanes in our 5G highway one dedicated for the home rollout, AirFiber and while still continuing to serve our 5G mobile customers with the best network anywhere in the world.

Of course, within the home, again, we are upgrading our WiFi offering. As you know, our JioFiber offering comes not just with the connectivity to the home, but also wall-to-wall WiFi coverage. So we are now upgrading our WiFi offering WiFi-6. So our home gateways now going forward will be WiFi-6 compatible, it also means better indoor coverage to WiFi as well. Also, single sign-on. So along with our connectivity, we are also providing a set-top box, along with a bundled offering of pretty much all the OTT media applications, plus, of course, a number of other partnered applications like YouTube, et cetera, all part of that set-top box offering -- and what we are doing now is creating a single sign-on framework, which has already been there, but making it even more interactive and stronger to even support the AirFiber offering as well.

And of course, now with additional technologies coming in, we are also augmenting our network operation center and our service operations center. So that not just the network quality, but the end-to-end service experience of our user, including, of course, the broadband coming into the home, the WiFi within the home and obviously, all these applications being delivered through the set-top box, all can be monitored and any issues can be proactively addressed even before -- sometimes our customers are even able to highlight any problems that they may be facing.

So all of this taken together between JioFiber and Jio AirFiber means that we are accelerating our home broadband ambitions to connect as much as 100 million homes in the quickest possible time frame. Another -- now coming to digital platforms. One of the success stories that we have had in the last quarter is JioCinema and really using JioCinema to showcase a streaming experience at scale around IPL as the initial showcase of what is possible. Obviously, even before IPL, we had already started introducing the JioCinema capabilities. So the FIFA as well as the women's IPL leading up to the men's IPL that we had, but with men's IPL really created world records in pretty much every category that we can think about when it comes to live streaming.

32 million concurrent users watching IPL at its peak with more than 17 billion streams served over the season, obviously, translating into nearly 160 billion minutes of watch time. And of course, all of this is being done in multiple languages with all kinds of interactive features and effectively, this has really set the stage for the future. I think looking forward, we can see even more content coming to the -- through the streaming format as compared to what has traditionally been a linear broadcast-oriented format, which means obviously a set of superior watching experiences that all of the Jio customers can expect to have going forward.

All of this has been done through what we call a glass-to-glass solution, which has been built by Jio platforms, everything from, obviously, the lowest latency showing a screen, which is coming through the steaming format through the Cloud even faster than it can be put on a screen even through technologies like DTHs, which are much simpler technologies, production being supported while traditionally -- we have only had up to HD, but through the streaming format, we were able to support both 4K and 8K videos, multiple cameras being offered simultaneously for users to choose from. Obviously, a pan-India content delivery -- content distribution network that we were able to -- be it from scratch to be able to support the delivery of this media ad scale multiple other options for keeping the customers engaged, including things like watch party where you can watch things with your friends, play along, which is obviously Gamification of content where people can actually even consume interactive games while they're watching the match.

A new monetization model, so this was entirely free from a subscription perspective, but behind the scenes, obviously, we stitched up our own ad platform, so they have to monetize it through the ad monetization framework. And like I said, all of these being done in multiple languages simultaneously. Obviously being also curated content and curated commentary that we were introducing from JioCinema itself. So really an end-to-end solution is really through the point that India is ready for streaming and really migrating away from the linear model that the world is moving away from it but India could do it much faster.

One of the other things, which is also one of the form areas also finding traction is our IoT platform. So everything from monitoring assets to utilities to things like transportation to even things like agriculture. So now our IoT platform slowly but surely has been gaining adoption. If you look at the right, there are these logos, everybody from Mahindras, Havells, Schneider, Tata Power and when it comes to automotive partnerships with the likes of BMW, Volkswagen, Ather and on the Agri side, people like Amul, all of that really using the power of the sensors that we have designed and embedded into many of these solutions that we are using, supported by the narrowband IoT network, which is pan-India and in many cases, also providing the back-end analytics and cloud capabilities, all packaged as one end-to-end solution that we are able to offer across these industry verticals across these customers.

So again, this is an exciting area for us looking forward. And this will be a very strong source of additional revenue for JPL looking forward. I will invite Anshuman to talk about our financial and operating metrics.

[Anshuman Thakur, executive]

Thank you, Kiran. Good morning, everyone. I'll summarize the financial results for the quarter, in this section of the presentation. So JPL had a strong operating and financial performance during quarter -- the consolidated revenues for the quarter were at INR 26,115 crores. That's a growth of 11.3%. EBITDA grew at 15% to INR 13,116 crores. there was sustained subscriber growth. As Kiran also spoke about, 448.5 million subscriber base at the end of the quarter. Network leadership driving bulk of this, and we are seeing early traction with our 5G rollout as well. So both leadership and the subscriber growth as well as MNP growth and the subscriber traction remains very strong.

The ARPU for the quarter grew to INR 180.5. Now this is really the growth is coming -- being driven by the additional data consumption or increase in the tariff plans of consumers. There was no tariff increases that we have enforced. The monthly data traffic on the Jio network cross was 11 Exabytes. So data consumption continues to be very strong, driven by both 5G as well as some events during the quarter, which resulted in higher data consumption the data consumption was up 28.3% year-on-year. And that continues to grow every quarter at a very rapid pace, and we continue to see that trend on our network. Kiran spoke about the 5G coverage, and we are well on track to complete pan-India coverage before the end of the year.

Moving on. The data traffic -- if you look at the trends, it's been growing at a faster pace every quarter. This quarter, the monthly data traffic cost 11 Exabytes for the quarter. On the whole, it was more than 33 Exabytes and this was a function of multiple things. Of course, 5G adoption also now showing up on the network, fiber-to-the-home ramp-up as well as some events like IPL, which resulted in a lot of data consumption on the network. The per capita data consumption increased 20% year-on-year to 25 GB per user per month now.

And we're continuing to build capacity in our network,both through the 5G expansion as well as anyway, the network expansion that we continue to do. So we are well prepared for data traffic growing much more in the in the quarters to come. Moving on to the key operating matrices for RJIL, our connectivity business, net customer addition of 9.2 million subscribers during the quarter, which is seeing an increasing trend. ARPU going to INR 180.5 per month this quarter. Both data consumption as well as voice consumption growing very rapidly and consistently.

So we've seen consistent usage and growth from -- on both data and voice front. Moving on to the financials for RJIL, again, steady growth quarter-after-quarter. And we have seen this for several quarters. The revenue -- operating revenue for RJIL for the quarter came in at INR 24,042 crores and the EBITDA at INR 12,663 crores. Though that is an EBITDA margin of 52.7%. For RJIL, our connectivity business. And moving on to the JPL financials. Operating revenues of INR 26,115 crores for the quarter, the 1Q 2024, the last column that you can see there, which grew 11.3% year-on-year.

EBITDA grew to INR 13,116 crores, 14.8% Y-o-Y growth and the profit after tax crossed INR 5,000 crores for the first time for JPL consolidated. It was at INR 5,098 crores during the quarter. That's a 12.5% year-on-year increase in the reported net profit. With this, I'll hand over to Dinesh for the Reliance Retail summary.

[Dinesh Taluja, executive]

Thanks, Anshuman and good evening, everyone. Just to quickly cover on the Retail side, we continued our sustained growth journey. The revenues grew 19% on a Y-o-Y basis. the growth was quite broad-based across consumption baskets. Grocery was the star with a 59% growth on a year-on-year basis. Consumer Electronics and Fashion & Lifestyle, which are the other verticals also grew 14% and 15% on a Y-o-Y basis. We continue to expand our EBITDA margin as the benefit of efficiencies and scale keep increasing.

Our EBITDA grew 34% on a Y-o-Y basis, driven by growth and margin expansion across both Grocery and Fashion and Lifestyle. We continue to make investments in infrastructure and people that really help us enhance our customer value proposition as well as drive efficiencies to deliver sustained growth and margins. We are looking at the key operating metrics, footfall continued to grow there was a 42% growth in what was 249 million during the quarter. Our registered customer base loyalty customer base stands at 267 million, which is a growth of 28% on a year-on-year basis.

Number of transactions came in at 314 million, which was a 43% growth on a Y-o-Y basis. We continue to expand our store footprint during the quarter. We opened 555 new stores, taking the total store count to 80,446. Our total retail sales area now stands at 70.6 million square feet. We had announced the acquisition of Metro Cash & Carry India last quarter. We completed the acquisition and we are in the process of integrating that business within Reliance Retail.

Key numbers, gross revenue of INR 69,948 crores for the quarter. EBITDA across the milestone of INR 5,000 crores during the quarter, coming in at INR 5,139 quarters (sic) [ crores ]. While the stores off-line channel continues to grow as we scale up that presence. Our other digital commerce and new commerce channels also continue to do well and their contribution remains steal at 18% of our total sales.

Just summarizing 19% growth in overall revenue. EBITDA from operations INR 4,896 crores, a 26% growth Y-o-Y total EBITDA at INR 5,139 crores, 34% growth Y-o-Y and profit after tax of INR 2,448 crores, a growth of 19% on a Y-o-Y basis. So sustained performance across growth and profitability delivered during the quarter. Just to take you through some of the key highlights across our major consumption baskets.

Consumer electronics, we continue to see improving conversions as well as increasing average bill values as we see people spending more on electronics, they are buying better gadgets. And there is higher willingness to spend. This quarter, as the summer season started, we had a very successful push on the cooling category, refrigerators and air conditioners, where we were able to increase our market share. Also the back-to-school campaign, we saw a good strong push up in laptop sales. We leveraged the IPL, which was during the quarter, which drove a lot of Television sales. We also had a lot of regional festivals and we do this quite often for the entire year, we have the full calendar where each region, we try to capitalize on the mean consumption events to drive both customer engagement and growth.

The growth was quite broad-based. The key star categories were air care, which did very well. We were able to increase our market share, Phones and Appliances as well. resQ, which is a key growth driver for us and a big differentiator for us because none of the other electronics players have in-house service delivery capabilities of the scale we have. They crossed the milestone of 1,000 service centers established across the country. That gives us a big, big advantage over other people where we are able to provide same-day next-day installation as well as a target out of warranty opportunity, which none of the other players are able to do. And we are able to offer brands a one-stop solution for all the brands in an organized manner to do the installation, which nobody else can match.

Our own brands business continues to do well. We launched several new products across various categories, as well as continue to expand our reach. Our merchant base was up 2.4x on a Y-o-Y basis. Our B2B business within the segment, JioMart Digital again had a pretty robust growth. Phones and large appliances were the key categories where there was a lot of push. We continue to expand our merchant base, which was up 71% on a Y-o-Y basis. Overall, a very good quarter with very strong operating and financial performance. On the Fashion and Lifestyle, our stores business for apparel and footwear, we saw a significant against store traffic as well as growing average bill values.

As we see people more are buying more items as well as a trend towards premiumization where people are buying -- spending more -- we launched a number of new formats last year notable among them Azorte, Centro, Avantra, Kalanikethan which is one of the acquisitions we had done on the Sari-Space Portico.

We -- all of them have had very good response, and we continue to scale them up this year. We are seeing a significant evolution in customer behavior where earlier office attire and casual wear used to be different. We are seeing a merging of the two wear semi casuals, both in non-office and office wear is getting acceptable. So there's a trend where people are looking to buy by focus on things which can be used both in office and outside, and we are capitalizing on that trend.

We are seeing a significant uptick in smart casuals as well as athleisure. W executed a number of regional events during the quarter to leverage the sales that happen, the consumption that happens around the festivities.

AJIO again, had a very strong quarter. We see improvement across operational metrics and very strong growth as well as unit economics. During the quarter, we added 2 million customers. And launched several brands to add, as well as categories in order to enhance the number of options that we are able to offer to our customers. Our Partner Brands business and the premium and luxury segment continues to expand its footprint as well as the portfolio of brands. During the quarter, we launched Pret-a-Manger, the iconic British chain. It had a very good response, and we are looking at expanding that footprint further. AJIO Luxe, which is the premium our online business of premium brands. again had a very strong quarter. The number of options available grew 85% on a Y-o-Y basis.

We have now over 550 brands available on the platform. Jewels business sees very strong growth, not just in Metro Tier 1, but even Tier 2 and beyond cities. These are both occasional purchases driven by wedding season as well as regional events as well as core purchases both of them continue to do well. We continue to focus our efforts on improving our product offering and launch new designs and collections.

That's how we are able to differentiate ourselves in the market. During the quarter, we launched Thanjavur collection on the eve of Akshay Tritya. We also launched the wedding collection Vivaham, as well as Mother's Day collection, light gold collection. So there's a lot of effort towards segmentation and offering distinctive designs, which are suitable for various occasions to drive customer purchases.

Lingerie business continues to grow well. As you know, we straddle across a spectrum right from premium to the core range. Our brands, including a Amante and Clovia continue to perform well. We are expanding the store footprint as well as launching these brands in distribution. We have a pretty exciting event during the quarter, Super Powered Lingerie sale, which did very well, and we did see a lot of customer engagement and traffic during this engagement. We continue to explore launching new products, new categories to strengthen our portfolio. Some of the notable ones were ribbed crop tops, Disney branded sleep and loungewear. We continue to improve the online experience through adding new features and functionalities as well as offer in our stores, a distinctive customer experience to drive growth in this category.

Urban ladder, we continue to expand our store network. We have opened, as you know, a lot of smart Bazaars. They are big stores where we are opening shop-in-shops for urban ladder with a range available in those stores. We are looking at catalog expansion to provide our customers with a wide variety of choices variable of our products as well as external brands. And adding categories adding multiple categories as well as options in there, including beds, living, seating essential sofas, et cetera.

Grocery, again, another quarter of record performance led by both Smart and Smart Bazaar formats. Smart is our 15,000 to 20,000 square feet store, Smart Bazaars are the much larger stores, where we are able to offer a much wider assortment, the Public Holiday Sales event, it did extremely well. We saw very strong footfalls and orders during this period. As we have mentioned in the past as well, we are looking to grow the share of non-core in our overall business that helps us drive our margins, and that share is growing quarter-on-quarter very rapidly.

We had the strong traction in some of the seasonal categories like ice creams, cold drinks, mangoes. Ultimately, what we are trying to offer is each season, what is relevant for the customer. We are also trying to regionalize some of our assortment, which is specific to each region. As well as a premiumization to drive better wallet share and better order values from our customers. As I mentioned earlier, we completed the Metro Cash & Carry acquisition.

So we are looking at synergizing our Grocery.

New Commerce operating model and the Metro Cash & Carry model, both are targeting the Kirana segment. There are significant synergies in that business, and we are to capitalize on the strong footprint and capabilities that the Metro team has in order to further bolster our value proposition to the Kirana segment.

We are also looking to expand the JioMart Smart Kirana through the franchising model where these people buy exclusively from us. Overall, very strong momentum and performance during the quarter in this segment. Our consumer -- in our Consumer Brands business, we continue our growth trajectory. We continue to expand and enter into new categories. As well as enter new geographies by increasing our distribution network in the general trade channel. We saw an 8x Y-o-Y growth in the General Trade segment. Some of the category highlights, we launched Campa Cola, which saw very strong traction. We had an 11x Y-o-Y growth in this category. In fact, we ran out of the capacity that we had very quickly.

We also continue to explore new partnerships and product launches during this quarter. We launched Alans Bugles in partnership with General Mills in Kerala, and we are looking to expand that. We also launched a range of deodorants under -- with Europer perfumes. That again is seeing very good traction in the initial period of launch.

JioMart, we continue to expand our seller base as well as the number of options in order to offer a wide selection to our customers, which is seeing very positive risk the business continues to grow very well with both increase in traffic, customer engagement as well as the average bill values will definitely help our unit economics. Our options count during the quarter was 6x on a Y-o-Y basis.

Seller base was up 4x Y-o-Y basis. And as a result, the non-grocery categories are growing pretty rapidly and their share is increasing.

We built a new marketing property, Grand Shopping Carnival, which saw a lot of new users coming on to the platform, as well as driving some specific categories. The share of electronics during this period actually doubled. We did a lot of promotion. So a very strong growth during this period. That's it on Retail.

[Sanjay Roy, executive]

Thanks, Dinesh. So just to give you a recap of the performance in the first quarter of this fiscal. So revenue grew, we are over INR 4,632 crores and the EBITDA also grew to about INR 4015 crores. So that's a 46.7% growth year-on-year about 5.6% growth quarter-on-quarter. This is mainly led by production -- increase in production over the quarter with the commissioning of the gas condensate field, we are now pretty much ramped up production to -- at current levels to about slightly over 28 million standard cubic meters as well on well on our way to achieve the 30 million standard cubic meters as well as about close to 18,500 barrels of condensate per day.

In terms of realization, yes, year-on-year, we had higher realizations. But over the -- on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the ceiling price in the last half was about $12.4 in this quarter about $12.12. Additionally, we have seen that the global gas prices, particularly LNG prices due to demand factors have come down considerably. So the realization was around $10.81 is a combination of these factors. So as I mentioned earlier, we have well on costs. We commissioned the MJ Gas Condensate field where this all three fields, new fields are currently producing. We have about two more wells to come on stream, but we are now already at least about 28.5 million standard cubic meters, and we are well on track to achieve the 30 million standard cubic meters in the coming months. This is going to be a material increase in domestic production.

With production coming on stream, we conducted two rounds of auctions, e-auctions for a total cumulative volume of about 11 million standard cubic meters this has been very -- this was very successful. We have signed contracts with over 45 customers across city gas distribution, fertilizer and refinery and other industries. Till date, we have contracted 29 million standard cubic meters of the KG D6 gas. The price discovery was JKM + $0.75/MMBtu, which is obviously subject to the government ceiling price, which is at the current juncture for this half, $12/MMBtu. Just to give you a perspective on gas outlook, the impact on India and the demand and price aspects. So what we have witnessed is the European Union reduced the demand by 20% as it is a target of 15%. Constantly, we also saw demand being a little sluggish thereby storage levels being at historical high seen, if we compare it to the last 5 years average, we are at 65%, we are at 80%.

Also, we've seen sluggish growth in the Chinese economy, which has impacted the demand. Now these are factors that have contributed to the LNG prices being lower then the ceiling price for the first time since the commencement of production. The auctions went well so in that sense by JKM + $0.75/MMBtu. We expect to realize a higher price than the benchmark, which will stand us in good stead. These contracts are for almost 3 to 5 years. So that is good.

In terms of the outlook, we expect price volatility to continue this fiscal, particularly with considering high EU storage levels. and higher nuclear output from Japan and France. Well, we hope to see a recovery in demand in China in the second half and with the new policy support. And this should at least hold in good stead the price outlook for the balance part of the year.

[Srikanth Venkatachari, executive]

Thanks, Sanjay, so the last presentation on O2C Sanjay setting the context, as I highlighted before, first quarter FY'23 was once in a generation dislocation of energy markets, which drove fuel margins to historic levels. On the PETCHEM side, the environment has been a bit soft more because of the fact that China opening up has been slower than what the -- what we have been expecting. Also, at a broader context, if you see the producers and intermediaries continue to de-stock because of at least recession concerns in the West. Also higher interest rate does have some impact as far as consumer demand is concerned.

So that is the broader context of downstream chemicals. But when you look at it from a point of view of fuel, clearly, you are seeing strong -- continuing strong demand for fuel with the opening of China and you saw that on a more broader basis, you can see that overall demand for oil has been pretty strong. In that context, when you look at India, both demand for oil fuels as well as vehicles has actually very good in some of the highest -- and it does provide us scope for margin intent as well as optimization opportunities.

So these are the numbers. As I highlighted, INR 15,271 crore , that is the EBITDA down 23% on a year-on-year basis and quarterly, it is down 6.3%. Year-on-year, as I show in subsequent slides, fuel cracks have fallen anywhere between 60% to 70% even Polymer Delta as did fall in a market which has been supplied. Our Polyester margins have been relatively better. It has declined only 3.3% on a year-on-year basis. On Q-on-Q, continuing correction in fuel cracks with supplies and the more broader global macro headwinds or concerns that has had some impact and as far as the margins for fuels are concerned.

Also, PVC delta was lowered. Actually, previously, among all petrochemical downstream products has seen significant fall, both on a year-on-year basis as well as on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Of course, from our point of view, we have been continuing -- we have been able to focus on our operational excellence with high utilization levels advantage feedstock sourcing and the fact that the highlighted demand for both fuels and chemicals have been strong in India. On the overall environment, as you can see from the data, oil demand up 2.8 million barrels per day when you compare on a year-on-year basis, largely led by China opening, which amounts for almost 2.3 barrels per day. And there you saw a recovery, especially in ATF and Gasoline.

India demand, as I said, 5% higher -- on a year-on-year basis. If you can look at polymer demand and polyester demand, again, very strong, 16% higher for polymer than 5% for polyester and you have seen that in across the board be FMCG or e-comm, food packaging, Pharma, I mean, we have seen the demand on a more broad-based basis. Slight [indiscernible] refining and operating rates both on crackers and refinery is slightly lower on the back of more, I would say, seasonal maintenance activities.

And the number is cracker is concerned, demand -- lower demand in U.S. and Europe impacted a bit, but nothing really significant. This is the domestic oil demand, and you can see that the 5% that I talked about. When you look at each of the components, petrol, that's up 7% year-on-year. When you look at diesel, it's up 8% year-on-year. And when you look at ATF, it's up 13% on a year-on-year. So all on the back of travel, holiday infrastructure spend, farm sector being good. Industrial activity, mining activity continuing to be strong.

So you're seeing the effect of all of these and ATF a big jump on the back of tourism. It's almost domestic air travel itself is up 19% year-on-year. On the components, as I highlighted, polymer up 16%. Here, the big driver from PE and the categories of pipes and FMCG and e-commerce up and food packaging. So that's really been the place where PE has gone. And also PP and PVC also has been good in terms of about 7% for PV and 9% for PVC.

On the polyester side, 5% of the -- of course, the large driver coming from PET and where, as seasonal factors that are clear with the summer and delay onset of the monsoon. Staple fiber was impacted because the market sentiments were soft with a decline in cotton prices. When you look at polymer deltas, when you look at them across, you would see that it is softer, PE, PP, PVC year-on-year.

More pronounced in PVC, which is down 35% with the normalization of supplies from U.S. and China. And also PP also got impacted by ramp-up in China capacities. On -- when you look at it on a Q-on-Q slightly mixed, we have seen PP&PE delta over Naphtha now is up for 4% and 17% has been up. And PVC deltas again, as I said, is down 23% led by -- from EDC prices. And of course, we benefited on the back of ethane prices coming down by 16%, given our capabilities out there in terms of raising both the fees, and that has helped also in the profitability.

Polyester side, year-on-year, down 3%, quarterly up 11% and more impacted by slower recovery, I would say, year-on-year in China and also global demand being a bit weak. But on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the jump that you are seeing by 11% is coming on the back of PX margin improvement. Because of turnaround season as well as the fact that gasoline demand has rebounded pretty toughly. Also, we did see recovery in PTA prices as well as MEG of course, it was coming from the back of low base and the fact that feedstock prices were pretty soft.

And moving on to transportation fuels, and you can see -- I referred to the 60% to 70% fall and you can see $52 in first quarter of FY '23, down to about $16 in terms of the crack pits. But overall demand for gasoil is -- has been higher. It's now 28.4 million barrels per day it was up 0.3 million barrels per day on the back of demand growth in Asia and Middle East. That did offset the impact from low demand in the West -- and when you look at it on a quarter-on-quarter basis, gas oil lower on the back of lower active -- low industrial activity. And also the fact that no continuing availability of Russian diesel in the market.

Jet/Kero again, demand went up to 7.2 million barrels per day, almost the main demand coming really from China and U.S. And -- the cracks from 39.2% down to 14%. And even on a quarterly basis, it is lower, and it has moderated in line with what we saw as the gas oil cracks we saw that. Global ATF demand, it is interesting to note that the ATF demand is still 6% below 2019 average with lagging Asian demand. That's something I wanted to highlight. And -- of course, the -- I talked about the first quarter FY '23 being [ normally ] guided. On gasoline, again, like all the three cracks, this was also up 1.9 million barrels per day to close to 27 million barrels per day. And again, China and U.S. accounted for it.

And it did commoderate in -- from a quarter point of view, moderated, not because of demand, but because cushion supplies have been pretty resilient and also the output from the new refineries have been continuing to be supplied in the market. Overall operating performance, the cyclone biparjoy that, that impact be minimized by depleting inventory the two shutdowns, both the FCC hydrotreater and the Dahej Cracker, this was completed in this quarter. Feedstock sourcing, focus on advantaged Feedstock sourcing was there. We continue to focus on that, given the and we prefer it over the regional crudes given the differential. And as Gasoline netback, we maximized by focusing on the U.S. market, given demand and the fact that margins went better.

And Gas price continue to do well. And as always been highlighting that it has eliminated LNG imports and minimize the cost of fuel for us. Overall demand environment is up, demand is up 2.2 million barrels per day. And China will account for 70% of that demand is coming on the Summer driving season. Our recovery in China's international travel is positive for jet fuel and the fact that downstream typical demand in India is expected to be robust on the back of economic activity. On the margins side, demand is strong. But the fact that there is -- the limited Chinese exports would help in keeping fuel cracks supported. And downstream chemicals, there could be higher supply from China, which could cap downstream margins. Overall, from a risk factor point of view, voluntary oil production cuts by OPEC+ countries making crude price elevated and could have an impact on demand.

And other risk factors could be a higher inflation, subject to global demand, higher supply from China. These things may have an effect on our exports into U.S. and Europe. Yes. Just to summarize, overall, you've seen through all the presentations, healthy subscriber additions more than over 9.2 million customers that we added improving operational metrics on Jio side. For Retail, continue to expand footprint and you can see the traction in digital commerce. And also when you look at all the customer engagement metrics are pretty strong. Resilient O2C performance, given what we have seen in terms of volatility in the energy markets and the global macro headwinds.

Despite a decline in product margins, we were able to focus on our operational side and maximize profitability given the operational flexibility that we have. Overall, KD G6, as Sanjay highlighted, we close to delivering 30 MMSCMD in FY '24, which will be 30% of India's gas production. Given the broader context of what I said about first quarter of FY '23, it is -- performance has been strong led by consumer and upstream business. The fact that we have a diversified portfolio across consumption basket helps us on the strong growth and the growth outlook.

A robust balance sheet with high liquidity to supply accelerated growth plans. With this, I'll come to the end of my presentation. Thank you so much for being on the call.