Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, reported a net profit of Rs 2,331 crore in the January-March quarter, nearly triple in comparison to Rs 840 crore a year ago, PTI reported on Thursday. On a year-on-year basis, it grew 177.5%.

This was fuelled by the tariff raises that aided its average revenue per user for the second straight quarter. The net profit grew 72.7% from the previous quarter’s Rs 1,350 crore. Jio’s revenue from operations for the fourth quarter was Rs 14,835 crore, which translated into year-on-year growth of 26.6%.

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“Aggressive sales initiative and customer focused approach have been launched to help recoup slowdown in subscriber addition momentum, as we return to normalcy,” Jio said in a statement.

The operator also said that despite the lockdown to help fight coronavirus, there was “zero impact on network performance due to high degree of virtualisation and network automation”.

On April 22, Facebook Inc had bought a 9.99% stake in Reliance-owned Jio Platforms for $5.7 billion, or Rs 43,574 crore, as the social media company looked to expand its presence in its largest market in terms of subscriber base.

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Reliance Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said, “Jio is embarking on the next leg of growth with a path-defining partnership with one of the world’s largest digital companies, Facebook.”

He added: “We are together determined to make India a truly digital society with best-in-class connectivity network complemented with disruptive digital technology platforms for entertainment, commerce, communication, finance, education and health harnessing world’s best tech capabilities.”

The company added that there was an exceptional income of Rs 31 crore during the quarter that was related to the reversal of provisions on adjusted gross revenue dues. The company gained a net 17.5 million customers in the January-March quarter, and its subscriber base as on March 31 was 387.5 million.