Reliance Jio likely to witness limited lockdown impact: Report

Mumbai, April 1 (IANS) Reliance Jio is likely to witness limited impact due to the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown, according to a report by Motilal Oswal.

"The lockdown should have limited impact on RJio as telecom companies are expected to see recharge upgrades given the increase in data consumption," it said.

While this may partly be impacted by low number of new subscribers and physical store recharges, it would be cushioned by increase in digital recharges, it added.

"Our FY21/FY22E revenue growth estimates (49 per cent/14 per cent) could see an upward revision as there is an increase in noise around the next round of price hikes to improve industry health. For FY21/FY22E, we estimate subscribers at 469m/483m and ARPUs of Rs 158/Rs 163."

On Reliance Retail, the report said that the potential revenue loss due to the shutdown of Reliance's Retail network, except grocery, given the lockdown in India, is estimated at 50 per cent in the first quarter of FY2021. Recovery is expected to be slow, it added

For the core business of Reliance Industries (RIL), the brokerage house revised down RIL's refinery throughput and petrochemical sales to factor in the COVID-19 lockdown.

The demand for both air and road transportation fuels has been drastically affected, leading to fall in cracks of ATF, petrol and diesel, it said.