Mukesh Ambani, the MD and Chairman of Reliance Industries on Thursday, announced the company's renewable energy plan with a proposed investment of ₹75,000 crore over the next three years. Ambani also announced the launch of ultra-affordable 4G smartphone and a strategic partnership with Saudi Aramco as part of its 44th annual general meeting.
Last year, the company struck strategic partnerships with its mobile platform, Jio, and announced a fully local 5G solution.
Here are the important announcements from this year's AGM, held virtually.
1. Saudi Aramco as a strategic partner
Ambani announced Saudi Aramco as a strategic partner with Reliance. Aramco's chairman, Yassir Al-Rumayyan, would join the board of Reliance as an independent director. Rumayyan is also the Governor of the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. The Public Investment Fund is one of the institutions that picked up a stake in Jio in last year's fundraising juggernaut.
"This is the beginning of the internationalisation of Reliance", said Ambani, as he announced this partnership.
2. A new renewable energy business
Ambani outlined that Reliance was venturing into a new renewable energy business, backed by world-class intellect and talent. To this end, he announced the Reliance New Energy Council which he claimed will have among the best minds in the business.
He announced the formation of the 5000-acre Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex in Jamnagar towards increasing India's capacity in renewables. The Gujarat city is home to the world's largest refinery, and Ambani said that it would now be the cradle of India's push into renewables.
He announced four giga factories: solar manufacturing, batteries for storage of intermittent energy, production of green hydrogen and fuel-cell manufacturing.
He said that this venture would entail an investment of ₹60,000 crores over next 3 years, giving rise to a business providing end-to-end renewable energy solutions. An additional ₹15,000 crores would be laid out for for value chains and future technology, bringing the total investment of ₹75,000 crores
He said that Reliance would produce 100 gigawatts of India's projected 450 GWs by 2030.
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3. Jio
Ambani launched 'JioPhone Next', an affordable fully-featured phone developed by Google and Jio. Aimed at first-time 4G users, its main purpose is to wean users away from 2G, a technology underpinning mobile data. It would be powered by tailored-made version of the Android operating system.
This phone will be available from Ganesh Chaturthi on September 10. Though Ambani called it affordable, a price-point is yet to be announced. A video message from Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, also announced that Jio and Google would collaborate on 5G powered by Google Cloud.
Google was also one of the investors, in Jio's last year's fundraising spree, and the plan to launch a smartphone was announced then
Ambani was also confident that Jio would be the first telecommunication operator to introduce rollout 5G to users.
In one (financial) year, Jio added 37.9 million subscribers, making its total subscriber count at 425 million users; the largest in India.
4. Reliance Retail
Ambani claimed that one in every eight Indians shops at Reliance Retail, retaining its position as India's largest retailer. It would grow nearly three-folds in the next 3-5 years. Over the next 3 years, Reliance Retail would also generate nearly 10 lakh jobs.
Last year, it announced the acquisition of Future Group, and startups like Netmeds and Urban Ladder.
5. Core financials
Reliance generated a revenue of ₹5.4 lakh crores in financial year 2020 - 2021, in the year ended March 31, 2021.
It's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, or gross profit) was ₹ 9800 crores, with 50% of it from its consumer businesses.
The company continues to be India's largest exporter, contributing to 6.8% of India's merchandise exports at ₹1.45 lakh crores
The company also highlighted the largest capital raise by a company in one year at ₹3,24,432 crores, that included selling of equity stakes in Jio and fully subscribed rights issue.
The shares of Reliance Industries ended lower, trading at ₹2,153.50, down by ₹51.85 or 2.61% on the National Stock Exchange.
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