JioStar, the Indian media group controlled by Reliance Industries with Disney as its minority partner, grew revenue from operations by 10.1% to ₹6,806 crore ($710m) in the three months to 30 September, but its profit after tax fell 13.2% to ₹1,147 crore ($120m). Reliance published the figures with its own quarterly results on Friday 30 October, saying subscription income and digital entertainment advertising drove the growth in what it called a weak advertising market.
Key facts
- Revenue from operations, July–September 2026: ₹6,806 crore ($710m), up 10.1% from ₹6,179 crore
- Gross revenue: ₹7,944 crore ($829m), up 9.8%
- EBITDA from operations: ₹1,372 crore ($143m), down 10.5%; margin 22.1%, against 28.1% a year earlier
- Profit after tax: ₹1,147 crore ($120m), down 13.2% from ₹1,322 crore
- JioHotstar averaged about 440 million monthly active users, up 10%
Dollar figures use European Central Bank reference rates for 30 September 2026, about ₹95.8 to the dollar. One crore is 10 million rupees.
Growth without the margin
The quarter is the second of Reliance’s financial year, which runs to March. Operating profit fell even as sales rose: EBITDA from operations dropped from ₹1,533 crore a year earlier to ₹1,372 crore, taking the margin down by six percentage points. Income from investments fell to ₹130 crore from ₹205 crore, so total EBITDA dropped 13.6% to ₹1,502 crore. Finance costs fell to ₹27 crore from ₹89 crore, and a small tax credit softened the fall at the bottom line.
Reliance did not split out subscription, television advertising and digital advertising revenue. It said only that subscription and digital entertainment advertising led the growth, in a weak advertising environment, and that international sport brought in more money on stable viewing.
The comparison with the previous quarter is skewed by cricket. In April–June, when JioStar carried the Indian Premier League, it booked ₹10,946 crore in revenue from operations, but at a margin of only 9.6%. For the six months to September, revenue from operations came to ₹17,752 crore ($1.85bn), up 12.5% on the first half of last year, and profit after tax to ₹1,812 crore, against ₹1,903 crore.
JioHotstar and the slate
JioHotstar, the streaming service, averaged about 440 million monthly active users in the quarter. Reliance said entertainment viewing time on it rose by more than 15%, across Hindi and regional languages, and that a viewer on a connected TV now watches three times as much as one on a phone. In September the service relaunched under the JioHotstar name in Singapore, the UK and Canada, where Reliance said active subscriber numbers have since grown by about 30%. It has also started letting subscribers ask a friend or relative to pay for them, which it said lifted payment attempts by 10%.
On the content side, the six language editions of Bigg Boss, including the first Bigg Boss Bangla, hosted by the former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, together reached more than 90 million viewers on JioHotstar in their first three weeks. Reliance said the long-running series Resort had become the most watched show in the platform’s history, and that Pritam & Pedro, directed by Rajkumar Hirani, was its most successful short series. Sport in the quarter included India’s cricket series in England, which Reliance called the biggest overseas bilateral series on JioHotstar, Wimbledon, the US Open and the start of the Premier League season.
Our reading
JioStar is still adding revenue and users at a steady clip, but its costs are growing faster than its income, and with no split between television and digital revenue it is hard to tell how much of the squeeze comes from the weak advertising environment Reliance described. The overseas relaunch is small next to the domestic audience, but it puts JioHotstar in direct competition with Netflix and Prime Video for the Indian diaspora in three markets. The next real test is the October–December quarter, which carries the festive advertising season, and the run-up to the 2027 Indian Premier League. For India’s film business, which sells streaming and satellite rights to JioStar, falling profit at the country’s largest buyer is worth watching.
Related: India’s box office takes a record ₹4,443 crore in July–September; Disney+ will carry Channel 4 in the UK and Ireland; Amazon MGM Studios will double its spending on Japanese originals; STARZ doubles adjusted OIBDA in Q3.
Sources
- Reliance Industries, media release: financial and operational performance for the quarter ended 30 September 2026 (JioStar section, pp. 20–22), 30 October 2026
- Reliance Industries, corporate announcements, 30 October 2026
- Variety
- ECB euro reference rates via Frankfurter, 30 September 2026 (INR 108.8205, USD 1.1355 per euro)