Reliance Industries Ltd
NSE:RELIANCE
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Reliance Industries Ltd
Earnings Call Analysis
Q2-2024 Analysis
Reliance Industries Ltd
The company has reported an impressive performance for the second quarter of the financial year 2024, with a historical high EBITDA of INR 45,000 crores, an increase of 30% year-on-year. Net profit also mirrored this growth trajectory, soaring by 30% to reach nearly INR 20,000 crores. The stellar performance has been a collective outcome across the company's business segments.
The retail segment saw a robust 19% rise in revenue to INR 77,000 crores with a remarkable 32% jump in its EBITDA at INR 5,820 crores. This growth was underpinned by store expansions, growing at a rate of 31% in terms of square footage, and a substantial surge in festive demand. An outstanding Independence Day sale contributed significantly to this success, showcasing a 23% growth in consumer electronics.
Digital service revenues climbed by 11% to approximately INR 32,000 crores, with EBITDA following suit at INR 13,500 crores, up by 12.5%. The company successfully added 11.1 million subscribers in the second quarter, accumulating a year-on-year increase of 32 million. The adoption of the digital services offering continues to intensify, evidenced by a 29% hike in data traffic.
Despite a 7.3% decline in revenue to INR 48,000 crores in the O2C segment, primarily due to a 14% drop in oil prices, the division's EBITDA grew by a hefty 36% to INR 16,300 crores. The sector benefited from a 6% increase in volumes and firmer petroleum product cracks. Importantly, robust domestic demand, reflected in higher polymer and polyester demands by 25% and 12% respectively, provided a significant buffer against global price fluctuations.
The Exploration & Production (E&P) segment's revenue skyrocketed by 72% to INR 6,620 crores with an equally impressive 50% increase in EBITDA at nearly INR 4,800 crores, marking all-time highs for the company. This performance was driven by higher production volumes, particularly from the MGA field and the KG D6 production.
The balance sheet remains robust with a decrease in net debt to INR 17,727 crores, thanks to operational cash flows and a capital raise of INR 10,347 crores for Reliance Retail from investors such as QIA and KKR. The investments in capital expenditures primarily served the roll-out of 5G technology and the expansion of the retail ecosystem. The company anticipates a reduction in CapEx intensity following the expected completion of the 5G network setup by the end of the year.
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Today, we will actually provide the highlights of our second quarter financial year 2024 presentation. First half will be Srikanth would talk about the consolidated numbers, that's followed by Kiran and Anshuman [indiscernible] performance. And then Dinesh will walk you through retail then Sanjay Roy for E&P and then Srikanth back again for O2C and the summary. Over to you, Srikanth.
Thanks, [indiscernible]. Good evening to all of you. Let me start off with the highlights for the quarter. It was a quarter of the EBITDA was a record at almost INR 45,000 crores, which is about INR 5.4 billion that was up 30% year-on-year, and we saw performance across all the segments. Net profit, we delivered again close to INR 20,000 crores, that is INR 2.4 billion, even that was up 30%. Consumer business, very strong. Retail was the highest quarterly EBITDA strong footfalls and an 80% margin expansion.
Our digital services growth led by network relationship, strong subscription, subscriber addition and growing 5G adoption with more than 70 million people having migrated to the 5G network. O2C EBITDA was very strong on the back of domestic demand, which held up very well, firm fuel cracks and specifically PBC delta. Another upside came from our TGDC gas production, which was sharply up and also which actually led to a strong performance for our oil and gas segment.
So just the quick highlights before and I'm sure my colleagues will take you through in more detail. But if you look at retail, at INR 77,000 crores, we were -- revenues were up 19%. EBITDA at INR 5,820 crores, which was up 32%. So we saw -- you can see on a year-on-year basis, the store expansion numbers, the area [ under ] operation at 71.5 million square feet, which is again up 31%. We saw in this quarter festive demand and growth across segments. In fact, we had the best ever Independence Day sale, which was for consumer electronics, which recorded a 23% growth. If you see the store additions, we had 471 new stores in this quarter. And when you see the growth over the year, it is more than 2,000 stores.
Moving to Digital Services. Revenue close to INR 32,000 crores, up 11% EBITDA, 13,500 up 12.5% Again, if you see the subscriber addition, we had 11.1 million in second quarter and on a full year basis, if you were to compare year-on-year, 32 million. Data traffic was also higher, close to 29% growth, which is 3.63 [ exabyte ] of data. And clearly, you can see traction across and in fact, that the offering is significantly differentiated, has little -- has led to customer engagement, which you're also seeing in terms of translating in terms of earnings.
On O2C side, the lack in INR 48,000 crores of revenue, which is lower by 7.3%. That's more on the back of oil prices if you were to see year-on-year oil prices were lower by almost 14%. But the -- if you look at EBITDA at INR 16,300 crores, up 36% year-on-year. This is on the back of both volume increase, which is up 6%. It was on the back of gasoline cracks, which was up 47%, even PVC margins were higher, and we continue to benefit from optimized feedstock sourcing. Overall, SAED was lower, but that was also in line with the weakness in the mid displayed cracks. However, the offset has been the fact that the domestic demand has held up pretty well. If you look at polymer demand is up 25% year-on-year. Polyester demand is up 12%. The oil demand is up about 5%. So overall, the Indian demand is holding very well. And given that we are -- we largely supply more than 85% actually get supplied into the domestic market, we benefited. So people are also -- you could see [indiscernible] restarting with lower prices because these prices are -- some of them are 2-year or 3-year lows. So you could see demand coming in terms of restocking.
On the oil and gas side, as I highlighted, revenues at INR 6,620 crores, up 72%. EBITDA, close to INR 4,800 crores, up 50%, and these are all-time highs. And also, when you look at it, it is benefiting from strong incremental volume, both gas and condensate from the MGA field and we just look at the numbers. Just the KG D6 production alone is now on an average -- averaging about 28.3 MMSCMD versus what it was in '19, MMSCMD in second quarter if FY '23. So these are the numbers when you bring them together, revenues of INR 256,000 almost flat there, but EBITDA, as I highlighted, INR 45,000 crores, which is up 30%. And when you look at -- as I mentioned, as you saw, the -- all the EBITDA has been across the board, all the segments have done well. And in this quarter, you could see that the flow-through of EBITDA going into the net profit there.
On a stand-alone basis, if you were to see JPL is up 12%, RRVL up 21% and there, you can see that the net profit growth in the consumer business were tempered by higher depreciation with accelerated asset growth and higher network utilization. This is just a bridge for second quarter before a year-on-year basis, again, across the board, you can see all the businesses contributing and primarily on O2C side, you can see the sharp increase there on the back of gasoline and PVC margins. Oil and gas EBITDA was driven by volumes in KG D6. Retail benefiting from a much more broad-based revenue growth in each of these categories, for example, Fashion & Lifestyle was up 32%, grocery 33%, consumer electronics about 11%. And digital services, again, benefiting from the numbers that I talked to you on the subscriber growth as well as ARPU was slightly higher, contributing to the overall mix and this is just the sequential quarter, highlighting the fact that in the O2C segment fuel tracks, PVC delta helped in terms of delivering on the numbers and oil and gas, the ramp-up of MGA field. On retail, benefiting from the store expansion, higher footfalls that we saw and the festive season campaigns, et cetera, all of them done their bit in terms of seeing the growth and on digital services, data traffic growth. We're starting to see the benefit of JioBharat Phone and the increase in subscribers, both on a quarter-on-quarter basis as well as year-on-year basis.
And then bringing it into the balance sheet. Net debt at a lack in INR 17,727 crores, it is lower by INR 8,000 crores. versus what it was in March. And our operating cash flows, which we have been highlighting funded largely the CapEx of INR 38,815, which, as you know, primarily was towards 5G rollout and also for building our retail ecosystem. And the net debt was lower on the back of the capital raise that we did of INR 10,347 crores. This is for Reliance Retail which we raised from QIA and KKR. So that is reflected in the net debt number.
The amount which we have raised with an incremental INR 4,967 crores from [indiscernible] comes through -- will come through in October. And we do expect that the CapEx intensity will significantly decline given that the 5G network rollout is expected to be completed by end of this year. So overall, cash flows continues to be strong. Balance sheet is strong and the fact that we continue to have a superior rating August well overall.
With this, I'm going to request Kiran and Anshuman to take us through on the Jio side.
Thank you, Srikanth. As usual, we'll start with the key business updates and follow it up with operating metrics and the financials. I think the key theme this quarter has been the phenomenal rollout, which continues of Jio's true 5G. As we speak, over 1 million 5G cells are deployed by Jio on a pan India basis, which is also being used now by more than 70 million subscribers who have migrated from our 4G services to 5G. So healthy utilization getting unlocked against the investment and the capacity that we are building. In total, more than 150,000 towers today across the country carry both the banks, the 700 megahertz band and [indiscernible] 3,500 megahertz band spectrum with respect to our sales. And as we speak, the monthly 5G traffic has crossed 1.5 exabytes on a monthly basis.
Now the key story here is that there are nominally more than one operator in addition to Jio, rolling out 5G across India. But the fact on the ground is that more than 85% of the 5G sales deployed in the country today are from Jio. So that is the real reason why you are seeing the rapid adoption of our network as opposed to other operators. This 5G rollout significantly enhances our already well-established competitive position in the market. We are seeing dramatic adoption across key segments, especially the Jute segment. They are really heavy users of data, and we can see that, that [indiscernible] Jio True 5G is the highest in this segment. Equally, if you look at the penetration of premium devices on Jio's network, looking at the numbers that we had in March of devices, which are having an average selling price of more than INR 20,000 as a benchmark. That base has doubled since March, between March and September. So that actually indicates that the premium experience and the premium services that Jio True 5G is rolling out across the country is also attracting people who have premium aspirations.
Equally, in addition to the mobility network, we have also launched Jio AirFiber, which is our fixed wireless offering, which is a promise of providing fiber-like speeds over 5G spectrum to residences. This is augmenting our already well-established JioFiber, which is our optical fiber-based service, but really giving it -- taking it to the next orbit with respect to the speed at which we can roll it out across India. And the unique thing that Jio is able to do is that because of the fact that we are rolling out the stand-alone version of 5G as opposed to our competitors who are using nonstand-alone, we are able to use advanced technologies like network slicing, which means that we are able to create dedicated capacity for homes, which are not interfering with the capacity that we are deploying for mobility which gives superior service to both audiences, but leveraging the same physical capacity that we have got it on a pan-India basis.
Also worth mentioning is that, I mean, there are some very interesting [indiscernible], which have been I would say, launched by some of our competitors who seem to indicate that their 5G rollouts have resulted in many people joining the network. What is really left unsaid is that more number of customers have actually left those networks. And Jio is the only operator today in the country who has a consistent positive net adds, whereas the rest of the industry is actually quite negative when it comes to net adds. While they can talk about the gross adds but the net adds story, there's only Jio who has added more than 11-odd billion customers over the last [indiscernible] subscribers.
I think another testament to the fact that we have the 85% capacity share as well as the Pan India rollout, the rapid adoption of premium customers and the huge segment on our network. All of that is further reinforced by a unique first in the world type of recognition that we have received. Ookla, which is a well-established provider of benchmarking services, especially when it comes to coverage, speed and quality. For the very first time in the world, anywhere in the world across even developed countries and so on for the very first time, Jio has won pretty much all the 9 out of 9 awards that they have announced when it comes to mobile services. Everything from the fastest mobile network to the best coverage, to the overall best network, to the best mobile gaming experience, the best video experience, customer rating in terms of the top-rated mobile network and specifically on 5G the fastest, the best 5G mobile gaming and the best 5G mobile video experience. So all 9 metrics that they announced Jio has won outright.
The other leg that we are very, very much focused on, and this has been a consistent theme from the time Jio launched is to eradicate 2G services from India. So this is what we call creating a [ 2G-mukht-Bharat]. Of course, our 4G network and the 5G network is pan India, it is the highest quality, most avoidable network. But there remains a problem with affordability of devices, which has still kept a lot of 4G customers from being able to join our network and take advantage of all of the rig services that we offer.
So Jio-Bharat is a recent step that we have made in that direction. We have launched a series of devices, multiple models under the umbrella of Jio-Bharat. The entry price point of this device is less than INR 1,000, which is I would say, on par with most 2G phones. If you can think about it, and we are offering a fully capable 4G entry-level smartphone in the hands of the 2G customers in India. And we are seeing a substantial adoption of that, especially through M&P. So that means people are actually porting their numbers and coming to this device. And the real secret behind that is even on such a sharply priced device, we are able to offer a rich video experience, music experience, both on streaming, video on demand as well as live and even features like UPI, which obviously brings international inclusion. So all of these services are really creating a differentiated offering even on a sharply-priced device, which is something that 2G users are loving.
And in addition to that entry-level price point, we are also creating a good, better, best type of a ladder where people have an option to even go for bigger screens and other added features for slightly more by putting in a little bit more money they are able to go after slightly better devices as well. So great lineup of devices that we're offering to the 2G segment in India, and we are confident that this dream of 2G-mukht Bharat will happen sooner because of this.
On the AirFiber side, which is our -- like I said, the fixed wireless, we are seeing tremendous demand. We have launched it very recently in a few cities across India. Very shortly, we are looking to open it up across India. What we are finding is that a large proportion of the non-fiber covered areas are really the ones clamoring for this device because they've seen what JioFiber can do in certain parts of the country. And with now, they have a very quick way to get those services into their homes. What we are doing as we speak is obviously ramping up the entire supply chain of all the equipment that is needed to connect these homes using 5G technology and also ramping up, obviously, the additional go-to-market aspects, including [indiscernible] you can go and install these in your homes. I think really, the target for us is that addition that we had of connecting north of 100 million premises in the quickest possible way is now getting rapidly or substantially accelerated because of [indiscernible]. And if you look at the plans that we have also again from -- there's a whole ladder of plans that people can choose from anywhere as low as 30 Mbps to all the way up to 1 gigabit of speed that we can choose from. At the top end, it absolutely mirrors the capabilities that we have from our optical fiber service. So there's a full lineup of services extremely affordable bundled with a rich bookey of content, everything from live channels to OTT apps, including in some of the most of the plants, even popular services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and of course, Jio Cinema from the Jio Stable in addition to 14 other well established OTT apps all bundled as part of the subscription that people take on AirFiber and [indiscernible].
On the enterprise side, again, we are making good progress today, as we speak, in addition to mobility and home that I spoke about. If you look at all of the large named enterprises in the country, Jio is present across 85% of them. So that means we have a relationship with more than 85% of the large and named enterprises. The top 20 banks and more than 400 BFSI accounts, which is a big segment in India, in the financial sector, one on Jio connectivity today. when it comes to bids from the government sector, again, we are seeing more than 85% -- more than 80% win rate when it comes to open bits, again, showing recognition and adoption of Jio services both in enterprises as well as large enterprise segment. Also heartening is that beyond connectivity, now we have a whole slew of other services spanning the Internet of Things, Connectivity Platform as a Service and cloud and what we are seeing is more than 1 out of 4 enterprise customers that's more than 25% already is using 2 or more Jio services. So that -- I would say the attach rate of additional Jio services is also increasing with every passing day.
And the heartening thing in all of this is that while we are deploying our 5G services, I spoke about, both on the mobility and the Home segment and also on the Enterprise segment, the great news is that all of this is supported by our own indigenous stack that we have built and entirely cutting-edge, next-generation stack, cloud native to the core it is handling 100% of the 5G traffic that is operationalized on the geo network. We are also now starting to deploy our own software-defined radios into our network. I would say, in terms of adoption of the latest 3GPP standards, we are among the best in the world, in fact probably even ahead of the world when it comes to advanced adopting some of the -- or just adopting but operationalizing at scale some of the more advanced features as we spoke about in Jio True 5G., all of that backed by our own operating stack as well. So in addition to the 5G technology, we also have the operational support system and the business support system, increasingly on Jio's phone software stack. More than 100 unique types of network elements, we are able to do both our own as well as from our global technology partners, we are able to manage through the stack.
The 5G core is ORAN compliant. ORAN is one of the more advanced radio access network technologies that the world is looking to adopt. We are already compliant with respect to supporting those and at the heart of it, such a large network with so many moving pieces cannot be managed by humans. So largely, the entire AI ML stat that is required to manage this at scale and [indiscernible] optimize it is also something that we have developed. So this entire end-to-end stack, which is required to operate this cutting-edge 5G network is already deployed, updating at scale. And this positions us extremely well to compete in the private 5G market, which is obviously what is relevant for enterprises, not just in India but globally, and also to be the partner of choice for many telcos even if you're looking beyond the shores of India. So that's something that we can also feel to about looking forward.
With that, I think I'll hand it over to Anshuman who can talk about our operating numbers and financials.
Thank you, Kiran. Good evening, everyone. Quick update on the operational and financial highlights for the quarter. We have seen steady growth in subscriber addition in this quarter, and the numbers increased to $11.1 million. So it's been a steady increase quarter after quarter. unlike all the other operators who have been losing subscribers in this period and scaling up of the digital platforms, combination of which has resulted in the revenues going up at the consolidated level to INR 26,875 crores and EBITDA going up to INR 13,528 crores, a 13% year-on-year increase in EBITDA.
As I said, 11.1 million subscribers net addition during the quarter. So we ended the quarter at 459.7 million subscribers with an ARPU of INR 81.7. The ARPU has been growing again steadily quarter after quarter, but -- and mostly on account of the improvement in subscriber mix. as well as greater data consumption. Please do keep in mind that we currently do not charge for the 5G services in such time that the services are commercial commercially made available. We are still rolling out the network. So that data consumption is not leading to any additional revenue at this point in time.
In terms of data traffic, very strong growth. The total data traffic for the quarter was 36.3% exabyte up 29% year-on-year. with increasing usage on the -- both the 5G network as well as higher engagement on the [indiscernible]. So we're leading the industry transition now from -- into the 5G phase on the mobility side with our 5G superior network and the Jio-Bharat Gemara devices for the 2G users for them to upgrade to digital services. and then the air fiber for homes and SMBs, which is also now launched and gradually ramping up in the market. The -- as I said, we have been increasing the pace of subscriber addition with our superior network and more service, better quality service offerings that we're giving over the last 4 quarters, the pace of subscriber addition aspect. And with the 5G rollout getting completed, that should only accelerate. We added 3 exabytes of data traffic for the last 2 consecutive quarters. So data attraction, the overall data consumption on the network continues to grow very rapidly. And that's a healthy sign.
As you know, we are always very focused on creating the whole digital ecosystem, getting people more engaged, more active on the network. That clearly is happening over the last few quarters. The per capita monthly data usage has increased by 20% year-on-year to 26.6 GB per user per month now. and the fiber will further accelerate the subscriber momentum in the next few quarters.
Coming to the key operating metrics for RDIL, our connectivity business, the customer base, as I said, we ended the quarter at 459.7 million subscribers. That was a net customer addition of INR 11.1 crores. ARPU for the quarter came in at INR 181.7 crore. And this was mainly on account of increased better subscriber mix and increased data usage. Again, reminding that we don't -- we are not currently charging for any of the 5G data consumption on the network. The total data consumption was at INR 3,600 crores GBs and voice consumption continues to remain very healthy.
Moving on to the financial numbers for RJIL, the connectivity business. We -- the operating revenue for the quarter was at INR 24,750 crores and the EBITDA was at INR 13,059 crores. EBITDA margin increased further to 52.8%, paying out the operating leverage theme that we've spoken about. And as we start getting more traction on 5G [indiscernible], we will -- we expect this to continue to grow further. And a summary of the Jio Platforms Limited consolidated financials. Gross revenue for the quarter was at INR 31,537 crores, operating revenues at INR 26,875 crores, which in dollar terms is $3.2 billion for the quarter. EBITDA came in at INR 13,500 crores, so $1.63 billion for the quarter, EBITDA margin at 50.3% and profit after tax of INR 5,300 crores, growing by 4% quarter-on-quarter, but almost 16% to 17% on -- to 12% Y-o-Y growth in the profit after tax for this quarter.
With that, I'm going to hand over to Dinesh to go over the result summary for Reliance Retail.
Thanks, Anshuman. Good evening, everyone. On the retail business, we had delivered a 19% year-on-year growth in gross revenues which is a pretty healthy growth. If you look at across consumption baskets, grocery grew at 33% on a Y-o-Y basis. Fashion Lifestyle grew at 32%, while consumer electronics consumption basket grew at 11% Y-o-Y. The EBITDA growth was at 32%. We continue to see the benefits of operating leverage. Our EBITDA margin from operations was 8.1%, which is a 70 basis points growth on a Y-o-Y basis. Grocery and fashion itself continue to be the key drivers of growth in EBITDA for our business. As we discussed earlier, we raised INR 15,314 crores of equity from global investors, QIA, KKR and Adia. We also completed the transfer of our warehousing assets to an invite entity and total consideration of INR 5,150 crores was received on 25th October.
Our operating metrics continue to show significant scale. Our footfalls grew at 41% Y-o-Y. The customer base was up 27%, and our number of transactions was up 25% on a year-on-year basis. We continue to invest in expanding our store network. We opened 471 new stores during the quarter. The total retail sales area stands at $71.5 million. We continue to focus on launching new formats to better serve our customers as per their needs. During the quarter, we launched a new format called ‘Yousta’, which is a fast fashion focused, youth focus format, which is doing reasonably well, and we are scaling up this format in the coming quarters.
M&A group continues to be a core part theme for us to expand our capabilities. During the quarter, we completed a acquisition of a majority stake in Adama which is a kids wear brand as well as we completed acquisition of controlling stake in Super Dry IP for India, Sri Lanks and Bangladesh territory. So we own the IP and we can expand further categories in this brand.
Our overall revenue of INR 77,148 crores, EBITDA at INR 5,820 crores. Our digital and new commerce businesses contributed 19% to our gross sales during the quarter. So broad-based growth across channels. Looking at the financials, our revenue growth revenue was INR 77,000 crores, which is $9.3 billion. EBITDA from operations at INR 5,600 crores. which is $675 million, 8.1% margin. Our total EBITDA was INR 5,800 crores, which was an 8.4% margin and profit after tax of INR 2,790 crores, which is $336 million.
Quickly covering some of the key highlights across our consumption basket. So on the consumer electronics, the focus continues to be on expanding our store network. We had the best-ever Independent Day sales on August 15, which was up 23% on a year-on-year basis. The growth was quite broad-based, driven through launch of new categories. There were mobile phone launches, there were promotions being run across different categories as well as some of the regional festivals, which fell during the quarter, all of them contributed towards growth. Rescue, which is a big differentiator for us. which helps us control the service that we provide our sees to the customers rather than dependent on third parties that continues to grow our network as well as improve the service quality. Our product brands group, it launched new products as well as expanded the range that we offer in our existing categories. We launched the QLED TV during the quarter. The merchant base where our products are present was up 2.6x on a Y-o-Y basis, and this continues to be the focus for this business. Our Jio Mart digital business, the growth was led by phones and high-end televisions. There, our merchant base was up 44% on a year-on-year basis.
Moving on to Fashion & Lifestyle. Off-line business delivered a pretty robust growth. This was in spite of the festival quarter for linker and entirely in the current quarter versus last year, part of the festival shopping happened. So we've had a reasonably robust quarter. As we -- as I spoke earlier, we launched the ‘Yousta’ format, and we are seeing very good traction, very good reception reviews from the customers. We also launched a new concept stores under our flagship transplant. It's a future-ready store with a lot of tech and immersive shopping experience. and we have got -- received very good response from customers, and we will be looking at scaling up this concept further. We continue to strengthen our own brands. Most of what we sell in our stores are our own brands, and we continue to explore various partnerships. Performance, which is our active air brand, tied up with all India Football Federation to sell products merchandise also Point Core, which is another brand tied up with via -- team.
We continue to invest in design and sourcing ecosystem to enhance our fast fashion capabilities and reduce concept to market time so that we have faster inventory turnaround as well as we have a good pulse on what's selling in the market. We are relevant fashion in our stores. Just as a reference point, we added 1,000-plus new options every day during the quarter. It's a reflection of the success that we have been able to achieve in reducing our design to market cycles. AJIO, which is our online platform, continues to do very well and grow from strength to strength. We focus on catalog expansion options count were up 50% Y-o-Y. [indiscernible] brands are our own brands, which are available only on AJIO. We had AJIO All Star Sale during the quarter, which went off very well. We had strong momentum on new customer additions as well, and we added over 2 million customers during the quarter.
Our Partner Brands business continues to dominate and lead in the premium brands and luxury segment. We have -- as you know, we have the widest portfolio of international brands and designer brands in the country. We continue to look for and partner with more brands and adding to our portfolio. During the quarter, we acquired a majority stake in Ed-a-Mamma, which is a kids wear portfolio brand that further helps strengthen our kids wear portfolio. Superdry is one of the successful brands in our portfolio. We strengthened the partnership with the brand by acquiring a majority stake in IP rights for India, Srilanka and Bangladesh territory. This is a very important brand for us, and we'll look to scale this up further. Ajio Luxe, which is our online luxury platform with luxury brands, again, continues to add new brands on to the platform as well as options which are available. The option count was up 61% on a year-on-year basis.
Our jewel's business continues to do well. We had good momentum and an improvement in operational metrics despite the gold rates continuing to be high. The focus remains on differentiating in the market through new designs, new collections themes, which are relevant for each market. during the quarter. We've launched Vara Lakshmi, which is a South-focused regional collection, and we launched 2 national collections, [indiscernible]. Our new business is Lingerie. We are making good progress. We are the largest player in this segment now. We continue to build on some of the marquee properties that we have built over the years. So our flagship event Grand Lingerie Festival did very well. It drove a lot of traffic across both our offline as well as online channels. We are looking to expand this category across our formats. So [indiscernible], which is our multi-brand lingerie and beauty format, which we have recently launched. Across all these formats, we continue to expand our in-house brands, and we operate across the spectrum from mid-premium to luxury. We are focusing on general trade so that these brands have wide distribution, which will further deepen the penetration and that continues to be a focus for all our brands in the portfolio within this segment. We also continued to launch enhanced the portfolio through new launches, thermals at [indiscernible] pajama sets is what we launched during the quarter.
Urban Ladder, the focus is on -- it's an omnichannel business. The focus is on providing more and more touch points to the customer, where the customers can touch and feel the product through our experience centers and as well as buy online or in the stores. We are also expanding the category by putting it under many of the smart buzzers that we've launched. So that it adds a new category into our Smart Bazar portfolio. We have also recently [indiscernible] into the institutional sales within the segment. On the grocery side, again, we had a very strong quarter, 33% growth on a Y-o-Y basis. The growth was driven by our supermarket, hypermarket formats, Smart and Smart Buzzar, which continue to do very well. Our flagship Paisa Fazool sale during August was a very big success. We had the highest single day sales on 15th August. We continue to push for general merchandise and other nonfood categories, and that share continues to go up.
We had an interesting collaboration with many prominent brands. to promote our Smart Bazar, Smart Bazar format, Smart Bazar [indiscernible] campaign. It was an industry-first initiative where a lot of brands actually funded this initiative are driving traffic onto our stores. as the festival season starting, especially some of the regional festivals, we focused a lot on gift packs and other festive categories, which saw very good traction. One of the themes for us has been to look at regional brands, regional products, take them nationally that helps us differentiate houses as well as promote these regional brands take a pan India, which helps them scale much faster. So that's something that we continue to focus on, in addition to premiumization, which is a continuous theme for us.
We also continue our integration of our B2B grocery business with Metro, and that's something that's under progress. This will help us provide an omnichannel experience to merchants and further strengthen our value proposition for this segment. Our Consumer Brands business continues to have strong momentum across categories of beverages. We had launched Camper earlier this year, and we had phenomenal success. We have launched many other brands in the German merchandise staples category, we had launched independents. All of them continue to do well. The focus for the business has been to expand the distribution channel and deepen the engagement with general trade we delivered 4x year-on-year growth in revenue in this business during the quarter. Beverages did exceedingly well and was up 7x on a Y-o-Y basis. Kemper has had very good traction.
As some of you might have seen, we launched a cricket themed energy drink called Campa Cricket to ride on the World Cup wave, and that has seen very good reception from customers. Independence brand, which we had launched earlier in the year, continues its growth momentum. We are now expanding it nationally as well as expanding it to multiple categories. Our online businesses, Jio Mart and with basket continued to demonstrate sustained growth. there's consistent increase in traffic as well as average bill values. We've been able to grow our average bill values on Jio Mark meaningfully through various initiatives. We onboarded MS Dhoni as the brand of master and launched a Jio Serve campaign in October, which has seen very good success. Our grand independent sales. We saw very strong growth in traffic as well as growth in GMV of or some of the newer categories like fashion and general merchandise that we have introduced onto the platform as we endeavor to develop JioMart as a cross-category horizontal platform. We continue to focus on platform enhancements to improve the experience for our customers as well as vendor partners, as some of you might have seen.
We introduced the smart ingress in the gross -- for grocery within Jio Mart. So now Smart Bazar is available online. Whatever you buy on the store is available on Jio Mart as well and gets delivered to your home in 24 hours if you were to order online. Our catalog expansion continues. Option count was up 3x on a year-on-year basis. The seller base is a part 2 on a Y-o-Y basis. So very good progress on developing the 3P category.
That's it. Now I hand over to Sanjay for the Oil & Gas segment.
Thank you, Dinesh. Very good evening to everyone on the call. Just a recap of the quarter on my -- as we can see, we had a pretty robust quarter on the back of KG D6 gas and condensate production, but essentially on -- in terms of quarterly performance on a year-on-year basis, we've seen a 72% jump in revenues, which is about INR 6,620 crores. In terms of EBITDA, we've seen it grow to almost 50%, [indiscernible] about INR 4,766 crores. This is mainly driven by the improvement in production that we announced [indiscernible] we are well on course ramping up the production from the block -- from the various fields doing the NJ feed to about 30 million standard cubic meters cumulatively from KG-D6.
As such, seen prices were better as compared to the last quarter by 6%. In terms of KG D6 MJ gas and condensate field, we successfully completed the commissioning as well as the performance test. All 8 wells are on production even as we speak and are under ramp up at close to 30 million standard cubic meters. In terms of CVM, the production remains steady, the base production and in terms of the 40-well program that we have initiated, we expect production ramp-up to commence from the fourth quarter of FY '24. We continuously looking for opportunities in terms of treating resources. So we will be drilling our first exploration well in early November. This is as part of our infrastructure and exploration efforts.
In terms of production, as you can see, we are well on course to achieving 30 million standard cubic meters, which is nearly 30% of ABS gas production and also really at 24,000 to 25,000 [indiscernible] of condensate. That's what we expect to achieve, but our focus will be not to sustain this production going forward. In terms of the overall markets, mixed aspects in terms of the supply side, we did see strikes in Australia and if you look at some of the pipelines, consequently, we did see lower supplies. However, we saw storages at historically high levels at about 96% versus the average of 87%. Now overall, the LNG demand was quite tepid. And what we expect now is in the short term, when you are done, the vendor will play a key role, severity of the winter will pay gas price movements.
Overall, the Indian market demand remains quite strong. In fact, in the quarter gone by, we saw consumption of almost 180 million standard cubic meters, up 10% from the earlier quarter of 16% mainly driven by gas-based gas to power sector and also from CGD. As such, we are also aware that the [indiscernible] price has been modified for this first half and the new device in price of $9.96 [indiscernible] for the second half of the year. So overall, we expect gas prices to remain firm and production will continue to grow to 30 million cubic meters. Thank you.
Yes. Thanks, Ajay. Moving to the last presentation on O2C revenues lack at INR 48,000 crores so lower by 7.3% on a year-on-year basis, that's more driven by the crude price that on a year-on-year basis, fill by 14%. We had a strong performance in as far as the EBITDA is concerned, up 36% on a year-on-year basis and almost 7% up on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The year-on-year performance that you see in EBITDA was on the back of strong gasoline cracks up 47%. In petrochemicals, petchem delta PVC delta was up 7%. We also benefited from a strong domestic demand environment, and we will see those percentages in the subsequent slides. Again, continue to benefit from feedstock sourcing.
Of course, on the [indiscernible] side, while at INR 606 crores, it was lower than what it was at the same time last year as but it is also in a way compensated by the fact that [indiscernible] lower. Petchem downstream contribution was impacted by lower delta mean down by 8%, polypropylene down 17%. The whole polyester chain, if you were to see it was down about 13%. So clearly, downstream was impacted by deltas. Of course, also the fact that it is in the context being a subdued global demand environment as well as the fact that it is also well supplied. But in our case, it was, to some extent, offset by the fact that we had higher domestic sales and also, in a way, benefiting from the sharp decline in ethane prices, which was down 46%. So the lower delta was, to some extent, offset by Indian demand as well as the fact that retail price is below.
Quarter-on-quarter was again benefiting from fuel cracks and PVC Gilda, which was up 23% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. This is a broader business environment if you want to see overall demand environment looks strong with oil at 102.7% up, 2.5 million barrels per day. When you see it from where location wise, if you see China was almost 2.2 out of that, and then the rest of Asia was 1.5. Again, when you see it from categories, the demand was significant in Jet, which has more than 1 million barrels per day demand. Also, gasoline was also pretty strong at 0.7 million barrels per day. So oil demand has been good. Indian demand has been strong when you look at overall that is across each of the transportation fuels demand has been strong. When you look at polymer and polyester demand, polymer is up 25% year-on-year. Polyester demand up 12% year-on-year. So that has been pretty good. And overall, if you look at refinery operating rates, on surprisingly, it is up on the back of firm demand for refined products. though the cracker operating rates were slightly lower [indiscernible].
So this is just a breakup of the domestic oil environment. You can see that petrol demand was almost 6%. The demand for diesel was up 4%. ATF was up 14%. So [indiscernible] is really the fact that there is strong momentum in industrial activity, there is demand for mining. The passenger vehicle sales air passenger traffic, if you were to see it, personal traffic up 22% year-on-year. So all these contributed to the overall number of 5.3%.
Moving to the polymer side. As I mentioned, up 25% year-on-year. And a lot of it, we saw channel restocking, given that PE and PP prices are actually 2 or 3 years low -- so you saw that kind of demand coming in. But broad-based, if you were to see the demand is coming through in durables, in packaging, in infrastructure sectors in e-commerce. So it is much more broad-based. PVC benefiting from demand for wires and pipes and infrastructure projects. And some of the government teams like [indiscernible], all of them is -- we are seeing it in terms of having a positive impact on demand.
On the polyester side, up 12% year-on-year and a year, the pull has been clearly [indiscernible] given that it's up 28%. And also both PSS and PFI demand we saw on the back of festive season. Moving to the delta environment, you can see that and TV were weak, both on a year-on-year basis as well as on a quarter-on-quarter basis. These are broadly global trends with demand being a bit subdued and it is supply continuing there. So when you translate in percentage terms, you can see that [indiscernible] deltas were lower by 8% and 17%, respectively. So here, the product price fell more than what the input price of naphtha fell so that hence, the impact on the overall deltas. PVCs was the exception in the sense that it was 7% higher on a year-on-year basis, and it was 23% higher on a quarter-on-quarter basis. And benefiting from a very sharp fall in EDC prices. Also ethane cracking economics remain favorable versus naphtha. So the 46% that I talked about in my previous slide. So that's the broader environment for polymers.
On the polyester side, both year-on-year and then quarter-on-quarter, you can see the weakness year-on-year prices. The whole change [indiscernible] is lower by 13%. Again impacted by slower demand recovery in China. And on the quarter-on-quarter basis, this has been impacted by weak global demand. And if you look at regional PTA delta, that was down 27% with increase in PX prices. But the fact that there was strong demand in India helped support those margins. MEG was significantly weaker due to strong naphtha prices.
On transportation, fuel, if you look at gas oil, demand per se was -- it grew by only 0.2 million barrels per day. to a total of almost 2.8 million barrels per day. Again, that was a mixed -- different locations was higher, for example, in Asia Pacific and Middle East were higher but they were all the offsets in Europe, Latin America, North America. So you saw that kind of regional divergence in as far as demand. But -- and also, when you look at cracks from 41.1% drop to 28.8% because it was exceptionally high in second quarter. of last year. So you saw that also, there is European weakness, which also pressured cracks. But on a Q-on-Q basis, you can see that there was a sharp jump because you have to look at the inventories, while it just started going up, the fact remains that at 543 million barrels, it is still lower than the 5-year averages.
So the inventory being lower is also getting reflected in the way people are stocking up in anticipation of the tightness because of the heating season. Also, we also saw the impact of export ban [indiscernible] for diesel, the refinery outages, all of them playing through in as far as quarter-on-quarter performance is concerned. [indiscernible], this product a sharp increase more than 1 million barrels per day increase to 7.5 million barrels. Again, demand coming in Asia Pacific, North America as well as Europe. And while year-on-year demand was lower because in -- if you recall, in second quarter FY '23, the reopening let trade had kept the -- had taken deltas much higher. But overall, you can see that on a quarter-on-quarter basis, a very sharp increase. This is 14 to 26%, that's about almost 47% yes.
That went up because you're seeing much more sweeter crude slate processing in the refineries, and that is on the back of OPEC cutshow. So you saw more heavier go out of the market. So sweet recruitment, lower mid distillate yields, and therefore, refinery is also prioritizing diesel object. So you saw Therefore, you saw this shortfall there translating in terms of higher delta spec. Also strong stand-alone, jet crore fuel demand has been pretty good.
On the gasoline side, you can see that overall demand went up to 27.1%. Again, gasoline grew about 0.75 million barrels per day with essentially demand in Asia Pacific and also in actually North America and Europe. Overall, you can see gasoline cracks improved because of lower inventories because of unplanned refinery outages Also, China demand has been strong with the reopening. On the quarter-on-quarter side, this has been supported by actually supplying disruptions, we saw some of the refinery closures in Germany in Rotterdam, so we saw that having an impact on the pricing. So this is the overall -- if you look at the operating performance, production meant for sale at 17.1 million tonnes and when you look at what we have done -- so apart from the margin and demand that we talked about in the previous slides, when you look at operating performance, you can see that we -- we prioritized alkylate and [indiscernible] gasoline exports given the premiums we are focused on placing with elated products given the higher demand in Europe. Overall, because chemical demand has remained subdued, we have optimized the production to focus more on the lighter feed on the lighter outputs.
Gasifier performance has been pretty strong, which also helped in minimizing the fuel mix and also eliminating LNG sourcing. This quarter, we will see -- we have started the shutdown of -- the supply shutdown of CDU that is in the catalytic cracking unit and a coker and ROJC that was initiated in the second half of September for regular maintenance and inspection. On the -- overall, when you look at how we see the O2C business, so we do think that demand is expected to remain strong even when you have to look at estimates from IA, you are saying that for next year, we are talking about still 0.9 million barrels per day increase to [ 23 ], which was also up by 2.2 million barrels. So demand for fuel remains strong. The refining system is definitely tight, which is keeping which will keep the margins at above mid-cycle levels. Planned shutdowns, unplanned shutdowns, all of them given the tightness in the refinery system will cause margins to expand.
For India, of course, for an Indian market perspective, where we are a key player and where more than 85% of our products go there, the demand environment is expected to be strong. And as you know, it is directly linked to GDP growth rate. So that outlook remains pretty robust. So I would think that we may have an edge there. And also the fact that the broader geopolitical tensions, things like oil production cuts by OPEC. All of them are expected to keep prices -- price and both the margin volatility is going to heighten all of them. So those are things that we see where we are. Overall, when we see it from our O2C point of view, in that sense from a business perspective, it does look pretty constructive for us.
Going to the last slide on summary, I just wanted to say that you have heard through all the presentations, earnings have been strong across all businesses, a very strong operational performance. Net debt, you saw has been lower with the capital rates and importantly, also the strong capital, strong operating cash flows, which help -- which has funded all the CapEx. We think that CapEx will peak in FY '24 with completion of the fast track 5G rollout by end of this year. And overall earnings momentum in consumer business, we see a high visibility of that growth. And given that these businesses come with high operating leverage and given the way we are expanding our footprint, the investments that we are doing on technology platforms, the new products across the range, we have a very constructive view of how that business is evolving. Overall, as I mentioned, on fuel side, market, it's a tight fuel market. domestic demand is good and very limited downside builds are happening in this market.
On the upstream side, in K-field production ramp-up is happening and broader outlook is that supply uncertainties are -- will keep gas prices elevated. Overall, a strong business portfolio and execution to drive returns and value creation.
Thank you with this, I come to the end of the presentation, and let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy [ Diwali ] going into November. Thank you so much.