Reliance Industries Ltd Q2 FY27 Earnings Call: Record EBITDA of Rs. 62,409 Crore, Jio IPO Lists at $137 Billion

Reliance Industries Ltd held its Q2 FY27 earnings call on October 30, 2026. Here's a quick read of what management said — performance, strategy, and the outlook ahead.

Record EBITDA Quarter, Led by O2C and Jio

• Q2 FY27 consolidated all-time highs — EBITDA of Rs.62,409 crore (+24% YoY) and PAT of ~Rs.30,000 crore (+34% YoY); revenue +28% YoY, led by O2C and Jio; cumulative PAT crossed the Rs.50,000 crore mark.
• Segment EBITDA mix — O2C Rs.25,203 crore (+69% YoY), Digital Services ~Rs.22,200 crore (+18% YoY), Retail Rs.6,120 crore, Oil & Gas ~flat (-2% YoY); JPL PAT +14% YoY.
• Balance sheet comfortable — net debt/annualized EBITDA ~0.47x on an annualized EBITDA base of ~Rs.2.5 lakh crore (September 2026 column); capex broadly flat vs recent quarters.
• Jio IPO listed late Oct 2026 — day-one listing value ~$137 billion at a 26.7% premium, making Jio the second most valuable company behind Reliance; records across issue size, oversubscription, QIB and retail portions.
• Festive season shifted entirely into Q3 FY 2026-2027 — management asked analysts to evaluate Q2+Q3 FY 2026-2027 together for Retail; strong Q3 FY 2026-2027 growth expected.
• Macro headwinds cited — inflation at a two-year high, significant currency depreciation raising landed costs of imports, and monsoon deficit pressuring agri-dependent states and food prices, weighing on discretionary demand.

Strongest-Ever O2C Quarter on Cracks, Capture and Ethane Arbitrage

• Q2 FY27 product cracks surged YoY — gasoline ~3x ($8.4/bbl Q2 FY26 average to ~$25/bbl), diesel ~3.5x (18.7 → 65.8 $/bbl), jet 3.7x (16 → 59.3 $/bbl); polyester chain margins rose 33%, led by PX and PTA.
• Spread capture improved sequentially — management confirmed better capture in Q2 FY 2026-2027 vs Q1 despite broadly unchanged published spreads; diesel cracks were almost $2.8/bbl higher QoQ, and the TC fleet (~20-25 vessels) mitigated the freight spike that spot-dependent refiners faced.
• Ethane advantage widened — ethane-naphtha cracking differential at $557 in Q2 FY 2026-2027, up 2.3x YoY; naphtha AG-to-Japan freight tripled to a $122/ton quarterly average; management said the ethane feedstock advantage is "here to stay" as two new ethane vessels are absorbed (period unspecified).
• War-driven supply disruption — Middle East naphtha flows halved to ~6.5 million tons (from ~12.5 million tons in Q2 FY 2025-2026); global cracker utilization fell to 71% from 81%; polyethylene ~41 million tons (~30% of global capacity), MEG 12.8 million tons and PTA 32 million tons impacted in Q2 FY 2026-2027.
• Refining outages persist — ~11.8 million bpd of capacity impacted in Q2 FY 2026-2027 across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Ruwais and Saudi Arabia; ~4-5 million bpd remains offline; on normalization timing for the remaining ~5 million bpd, management said "nobody knows."
• Outlook: cracks to stay elevated — management, citing market commentators, expects elevated cracks on low inventories; drones have hit ~40-50% of Russian refining capacity at some point; IEA projects global oil demand declining 2.6 mb/d in calendar 2026 and rebounding by almost 2 million b/d in calendar 2027.
• Caveats — substantial crude premiums over benchmarks, elevated freight/insurance costs and high energy OPEX; management believes freight and insurance will not normalize soon, citing the 1972-73 Arab embargo's five-decade market memory; petchem segment "still very much in the turmoil, not out of the woods."

Post-IPO Jio: Subscriber Momentum, ARPU Uplift, Tapering Capex

• 542 million subscribers at end of Q2 FY 2026-2027 — 9.1 million net adds in the quarter and 36 million over the trailing 12 months; mobility net adds ran at almost 2x the industry rate; 5G base reached 300 million.
• ARPU of Rs.218.8, up 3.5% YoY without tariff increases — management cited an ongoing organic ARPU uplift of ~3.5-4.5% (period unspecified) from higher consumption and improving mix; average data consumption 44.2 GB/user/month (+14% YoY) on 71.3 billion GB network traffic.
• JPL Q2 FY 2026-2027 financials — operating revenue Rs.40,475 crore (+11.4% YoY), EBITDA Rs.21,879 crore (+16.6% YoY), PAT Rs.8,387 crore; RGIL revenue Rs.35,307 crore (+10.8% YoY) with EBITDA margin up almost 200 bps YoY to 58.1%.
• Home broadband scale — 30 million homes connected; world's largest fixed wireless service with 15.1 million connections and over 78% fixed wireless market share, which management expects to ramp up further in coming quarters.
• Capex tapering — 5G deployment more or less complete across the country and UBR core network deployed nationwide; management expects healthy cash flow generation over the next several quarters.
• Moat claims — management believes its UBR technology is 2-3 years ahead of any competitor, with 4 generations evolved in the last 2 years; services cover over 99% of the population; enterprise strategy layers AI-led and SaaS solutions as a "digital gateway for businesses."
• JioStar revenue +10% YoY in Q2 FY 2026-2027 — driven by strong subscription growth and digital ad monetization; JioHotstar exited the quarter with 440 million MAU (+10% YoY); Drishyam 3 crossed Rs.500 crore in global net box office; management is very bullish on the remainder of FY 2026-2027.

Deliberate Investment Year; Online Build-Out Weighs on Margins

• Retail revenue +6.4% YoY in Q2 FY 2026-2027 — base ~Rs.90,000 crore; EBITDA Rs.6,228 crore at 7.8% margin before a one-time Rs.108 crore exception charge for shutting the 7-Eleven format; EBITDA from operations down 11% YoY; PAT down 24% YoY on higher depreciation and finance costs.
• Store rationalization — 303 new stores opened but 500 unviable stores shut (net count down ~200); retail area at 77.5 million sq ft; closed-store real estate to be converted to newer formats over the next 2-3 quarters from Q3 FY 2026-2027.
• Digital commerce scale-up — online grocery revenue +42% YoY; online share of grocery +270 bps YoY and of apparel/footwear +100 bps; omnichannel network of 5,000+ stores across 1,000+ cities (more than double the next competitor's ~2,500 dark stores); analyst Probal (ISEC) characterized the disclosed ~46% online grocery growth as underwhelming vs the largest quick-commerce players.
• EBITDA doubling target intact — Retail CFO Dinesh reiterated the target of doubling retail EBITDA in two years (period unspecified; timing could slip "one year here or there"); benefits expected to start accruing in absolute retail EBITDA from FY 2027-2028, with FY 2026-2027 framed as the "year of investment."
• Category detail — grocery 3% like-for-like growth with metro margin pressure from quick-commerce discounting (six players); consumer electronics 8% like-for-like and 20% distribution growth; fashion & lifestyle 3% like-for-like with own-brands share up 710 bps; B2B grew 10% YoY with 4+ million customers.
• FMCG revenue at Rs.8,266 crore in Q2 FY 2026-2027 (1.6x YoY) — H1 FY 2026-2027 at Rs.16,900 crore (1.8x YoY), already ~80% of FY 2025-2026 full-year revenue; Campa-led beverages delivered Rs.5,250 crore in H1 FY 2026-2027 (90% of FY 2025-2026 full-year), remaining the number 3 NRTD player in India.
• Dairy entry and global expansion — launched Bombay Creamery ice creams in Q2 FY 2026-2027; now present in Australia via Coles and Woolworths with local production, launched in Kenya alongside Ghana and Nigeria, and expanding in GCC and Southeast Asia (UAE, Oman, Malaysia).

Commissioning on Track; Gas Ceiling Price Upside in H2

• Solar capacity ramp — module capacity at 6+ GW as of Q2 FY 2026-2027 with up to 20 GW targeted in early CY 2027; cell capacity nearing ~5 GW with 20 GW targeted in H1 CY 2027; ingot, wafer, polysilicon and glass manufacturing progressing well.
• Battery timeline — pack and container facility of up to 40 GWh to be commissioned in the next half-year (calendar-year basis, per management's clarification); cell capacity of 35-40 GWh to come late CY 2027, with ramp-up from June to December 2027.
• Revenue contribution from FY 2027-2028 — management reiterated that revenues from the new energy complex will be seen in FY 2027-2028 and that earnings contribution will definitely start in FY28; transmission connectivity for the complex expected by Q1 CY 2027; the first module has not yet been installed, though post-monsoon installation remains on track.
• Oil & Gas steady at ~25 million standard cubic meters — natural KG D6 decline offset by elevated prices and a favorable exchange rate; a deep water rig returned to KG D6 in Q2 FY 2026-2027 for workovers and additional development wells; CBM output on an uptrend.
• Gas ceiling price upside — the ceiling price for H2 FY 2026-2027 is set to go up by ~$1 to nearly $9.9, which management expects should provide some realization upside; a distortion persists between market pricing and company realizations because of the ceiling price set in March 2026.
• Pricing freedom hope — management, citing the government's Samudra Manthan reforms and deepwater-targeted investments, is looking forward to the government giving more pricing and marketing freedom going forward.

O2C Run-Rate, Data Centers, IPL and Key Watch Items

• O2C FY 2026-2027 target — management said the business is well on course to deliver Rs.80,000 crore on an O2C basis in FY 2026-2027; H1 FY27 tracking to annualized EBITDA well over Rs.80,000 crore, with market strength characterized as structural rather than quarter-specific.
• Data center build-out — 44 MW of capacity to be completed over the next 4-6 months (by ~Q1 FY 2027-2028), with a further 120 MW planned (period unspecified); RIL is building infrastructure, electricity and telecom for a hyperscaler, with GPUs remaining on the hyperscaler's account.
• IPL rights renewal (early 2027) — RIL CFO Shrikant said interest is "absolutely yes" but price is the open question; Jio Platforms CFO Anshuman called IPL and marquee properties "a very core part of our strategic agenda," with bidding to be addressed objectively once the tender is out.
• Retail economics inflection — management expects investments to turn accretive to the bottom line from FY 2027-2028, with every incremental order becoming accretive; no explicit margin floor given, as margins depend on the online/offline mix (e.g., 20-80 vs 30-70).
• Polyester demand driver — management expects Government of India's new FTAs with the UK and US (on the anvil) to confer significant textile-export advantage and boost polyester demand (period unspecified); Chinese ethylene overcapacity likely to emerge over the next two years.
• Demand recovery path — after a ~2.5-2.6 million bpd reduction in 2026, management expects a strong rebound to ~2-2.3 million bpd in 2027, with rest-of-world demand more than offsetting China's structural EV/LNG truck shift; management sees no resolution in Middle East or Russia-Ukraine geopolitics.