Mumbai: Reliance Industries’ media and entertainment arm, JioStar, posted a strong performance for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, with higher subscription income, robust digital advertising and record engagement across its streaming and television businesses driving double-digit revenue growth.
Revenue from operations rose 14% year-on-year to Rs 10,946 crore, while profit after tax increased 14.5% to Rs 665 crore, compared with Rs 581 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Gross revenue climbed 14.1% to Rs 12,799 crore.
The company’s operational performance outpaced its top-line growth. EBITDA from operations surged 30.7% to Rs 933 crore, up from Rs 714 crore a year ago, reflecting improved operating efficiency across its core media businesses.
Although the reported EBITDA margin appeared lower due to reduced investment income, JioStar’s underlying operations showed significant improvement.
Operating EBITDA represented around 8.5% of revenue from operations, compared with nearly 7.4% in the same quarter last year, translating into an improvement of roughly 110 basis points in the core operating margin.
However, total EBITDA, which includes investment income, increased only 3.1% to Rs 1,049 crore as investment income fell sharply 61.7% to Rs 116 crore from Rs 303 crore a year earlier. Consequently, the reported EBITDA margin declined to 9.6% from 10.6%.
Finance costs also reduced substantially, falling 62.7% to Rs 44 crore, while depreciation rose 7% to Rs 338 crore, further supporting bottom-line growth.
JioHotstar scales new highs
JioHotstar continued its growth trajectory, recording an all-time high 530 million monthly active users, a 15% increase over the previous year.
User engagement also strengthened, with entertainment watch time growing 16% year-on-year, indicating sustained consumption beyond marquee sporting events.
The biggest contributor during the quarter remained the IPL 2026, which JioStar described as the tournament’s most-watched edition to date.
According to the company, the league reached 1.2 billion viewers across television and digital platforms, while digital reach alone touched 700 million users.
Despite macroeconomic challenges, including disruptions arising from the Middle East conflict, the company said IPL monetisation remained strong, although it did not disclose advertising revenues or the revenue split between television and digital platforms.
Regional language consumption continued to accelerate, with IPL watch time across regional feeds rising 33% on digital, reinforcing JioStar’s multilingual sports strategy.
Beyond cricket, the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup also attracted sponsorship across categories including consumer electronics, artificial intelligence and wellness brands.
Expanding advertising beyond video
JioStar continued to evolve its advertising ecosystem by integrating commerce and AI-led user experiences into live sports.
During IPL 2026, the platform enabled multilingual voice search through its OpenAI collaboration and introduced an integrated Swiggy ordering experience, allowing viewers to place food orders without leaving JioHotstar.
The company said the integration generated an unprecedented volume of food orders during the tournament, with half of participating users coming from Tier-II and smaller cities, highlighting the growing adoption of interactive commerce beyond metro markets.
Its conversational discovery platform powered by ChatGPT also continued to witness rising user engagement month after month.
Meanwhile, Tadka, JioHotstar’s microcontent platform, crossed 100 million active users within two months of launch, while average daily watch time per user increased fivefold during the same period.
The company also introduced its first AI-generated microdrama, Game On: 4,000 Crore Empire, created using its proprietary JAMS platform.
Television business maintains market leadership
Linear television continued to remain a significant contributor to JioStar’s overall scale.
The network retained a 34% share of entertainment viewership, reaching over 810 million viewers across India during the quarter.
Within Hindi-speaking markets, the company secured a 44% share of the pay television entertainment segment.
Star Plus accounted for five of the country’s ten most-watched Hindi entertainment programmes, while Laughter Chefs Season 3 continued to lead the non-fiction category.
Star Utsav maintained its dominance in the free-to-air entertainment segment following its return to DD FreeDish.
Across regional markets, Star Pravah, Star Jalsha, Star Maa, Star Vijay, Asianet and Colors Gujarati continued to lead their respective language segments.
JioStar also retained leadership in children’s entertainment, commanding a 47% share of the genre.
Originals strengthen digital engagement
The company’s original programming also contributed meaningfully to streaming growth.
Thukra Ke Mera Pyaar Season 2 delivered 50% higher engagement compared with its first season, while Inspector Avinash Season 2 registered 65% season-on-season growth.
The Hindi special Pritam and Pedro emerged as the platform’s biggest Hindi special release of 2026 in terms of viewership and engagement.
Interactive viewing continued to gain traction during the live premiere of Dhurandhar: The Revenge, where one in four viewers participated through live chat, memes or trivia, while one in five interacted with integrated commerce features, underscoring JioStar’s efforts to transform streaming into a more immersive and participative experience.
The quarter demonstrates JioStar’s ability to convert audience scale into stronger operating performance.
While the headline EBITDA margin reflected the impact of lower investment income, the company’s underlying media operations generated significantly higher profitability through growth in subscriptions, digital advertising and continued leadership across television.
The key test for the coming quarters will be sustaining this operational momentum after the IPL season, with entertainment subscriptions, digital advertising and television revenues expected to shoulder a larger share of growth as cricket-driven traffic normalises.
