India's Reliance yearly profits subdued on global oil slump
India's Reliance Industries reported a small profit increase for the year on Friday as a slump in oil prices hurt its major revenue streams of petrochemicals and refining.
The Mumbai-based firm said in a statement that consolidated net profit for the year, which ended March, rose 4.8 percent to 235.66 billion rupees ($3.78 billion) from 224.93 billion rupees ($3.61).
Reliance's net profit for the last quarter, however, rose 8.5 percent to 63.81 billion rupees ($1.02 billion) from 58.81 billion ($943.98 million) compared with the same period a year ago.
That figure was better than a median estimate of 59.6 billion rupees by 16 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
"The earnings power demonstrated by our hydrocarbon businesses in this environment validates our philosophy of investing in world-scale, cost competitive assets, cutting-edge technology and the talent of people," Reliance chairman, Mukesh Ambani, said in a statement.
Revenues from its refining business nosedived nearly 42 percent in the quarter to 564.42 billion rupees, and fell 16.3 percent year-on-year to 3,398.90 billion rupees due to the recent slump in oil prices, the company said.
The drop in prices and subdued global demand cut Reliance's exports of refined products to $5.2 billion over the quarter from $9.9 billion a year ago.
Although Reliance derives most of its earnings from its massive energy operations, it is trying to diversify and now owns a supermarket chain and a telecommunications company. Those forays have been aided by Reliance's high credit ratings cushioned by a $13.5 billion cash pile.
The firm controlled by Ambani, India's wealthiest man, aims to launch a multi-billion-dollar telecommunications network called Reliance Jio Infocomm this year to capitalise on fast-growing mobile and internet demand in India.
It won more spectrum last month in the latest round of auctions by the Indian government and the firm hopes this will give it an edge over competitors when it launches 4G mobile services.