India's Jio Financial Q2 profit doubles from previous quarter

BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's Jio Financial Services (JFS) on Monday said its second-quarter profit doubled from the previous quarter, in its first earnings report after being carved out from billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries and listed on stock exchanges.

Consolidated profit after tax for the three months ended September 30, which includes share of profits of associates and joint venture, rose to 6.68 billion rupees ($80.27 million) from 3.32 billion rupees in the April-June quarter, JFS said in a regulatory filing.

Profit on a standalone basis stood at 887.6 million rupees, compared to 20.3 million rupees a year ago.

The company did not give consolidated profit figures for the year-ago quarter.

Total revenue from operations rose about 48% quarter-on-quarter to 6.08 billion rupees, helped partly by dividend income of 2.17 billion rupees.

While not much is known about Ambani's plans for JFS, it is intended to be a "full-service financial services" company and has already announced plans to launch an asset management company. Ambani has also said JFS will enter the insurance segment.

Despite strong growth, penetration of financial investment products in India is low relative to the size of the economy.

In an increasingly competitive environment, rival non-bank lender Bajaj Finance has revealed plans to raise up to 100 billion rupees, while Tata Capital and Aditya Birla Capital are also rushing to raise fresh funds.

JFS, which has tied up with U.S. asset manager BlackRock to launch asset management services in India, listed in August at a sharp discount to the company's expectations. The stock is down about 14%, as of Monday's close.

($1 = 83.2230 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)