Reliance announced a rights issue of Rs 53,125 crore, which it said was the biggest in India.
Nivedita Mookerji explains why a timely rollout of 5G may not be easy in India.
Asian Paints, IndusInd Bank, Nestle India, Maruti, Hero MotoCorp and HUL were also among the gainers, spurting up to 5 per cent. On the other hand, ONGC, L&T and PowerGrid ended in the red. NSE Nifty surged 205.85 points, or 2.29 per cent, to finish at 9,187.30.
Infosys has emerged as the fastest growing IT services brand following 52 per cent brand value growth since last year and 80 per cent since 2020 to $12.8 billion, earning it third spot, the brand valuation consultancy said in its latest Global 500 IT Services Ranking report. TCS and Infosys have pushed IBM to fourth spot from second. IBM's brand value now stands at $10.6 billion, a decline of 34 per cent from last year and 50 per cent since 2020.
For years it has been evident that fibre and DTH would give tough competition to cable in India where regulatory overload has mutilated an already warped industry structure. OTT added fuel to the fire. From Rs 27,000 crore in 2010, cable's share of subscription revenues is now estimated at Rs 13,000 crore.
The Tata group's tryst with mobile services, with either CDMA or GSM technology, did not really fly, forcing it to close operations and write off losses. Now the group is back in the big game, this time straddling the telecom equipment, network and technology space in India as well as the global market. To this end, it is leveraging the opportunities that flow from 5G technology through open radio access network, or O-RAN. Recently, the Tata Sons' subsidiary Panatone Finvest acquired 43.3 per cent in Bengaluru-based telecom equipment manufacturer Tejas Network for Rs 1,850 crore and announced it would buy another 26 per cent of the voting capital through an open offer.
Reliance Industries Ltd, whose offering of rock-bottom tariffs shook up the telecom industry, is looking to repeat the feat in the green energy business, where its billionaire chairman Mukesh Ambani sees promise to outshine all existing growth engines in 5-7 years. Having pledged Rs 6 lakh crore on green energy, Ambani says RIL will scale up investments in this business which will start going live in the next 12 months. "Over the next 12 months our investments across the Green Energy value chain will gradually start going live, scaling up over the next couple of years," Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL, said in the company's latest annual report.
The fixed line broadband will offer "ultra high-definition entertainment on large screen TVs, multi-party video conferencing from your living room, voice-activated virtual assistants, virtual reality gaming, digital shopping, immersive experiences," Ambani said.
The first all electric Mercedes AMG launched in India
If IOC is not allowed to run its own affairs, then we can see it close down in the next 10 to 15 years, warns Sudhir Bisht.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group has struck acquisition deals worth $4.2 billion with a dozen companies in just two years to expand its retail business. The latest purchase was of a majority stake in Justdial for Rs 3,497 crore. Elaborating on his acquisition strategy a few weeks ago during the AGM, Ambani stated that one of the key planks would be to acquire businesses that enhanced Reliance's offerings and experiences to customers and that they would be both physical and digital.
Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.
With telecom disruptor Reliance Jio not raising tariffs, incumbents Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are focusing on the minimum monthly recharge and higher first recharge offers to ensure they retain only loyal and revenue-incremental subscribers, reports Romita Majumdar.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd's plans for investing Rs 75,000 crore in solar, batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen could create valuation of $36 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) for the new energy business, Wall Street brokerage Bernstein Research said in a report. Reliance currently has three verticals -- oil-to-chemical (O2C) business that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business; digital services that comprises telecom arm Jio; and retail including e-commerce. New Energy will be the fourth vertical. At the company's annual general meeting of shareholders last month, Ambani announced a plan to invest Rs 75,000 crore in a new energy business over the next 3 years in the next stage in its transformation.
Reliance Jio saw fall in speeds from 7.2 mbps in September to 6 mbps in October, according to CLSA report.
Shivani Shinde reports. The youngest member of the Tata group, the much-awaited Tata Neu, has finally been launched for people across the country. The 'super app' offers a number of services ranging from financial services to tech, travel and even groceries. The app takes off with a customer base of 120 million, with 2,500 offline stores. According to the Tata group, the app will be a one-stop destination for all consumer needs. The super app also offers a bouquet of financial offers like Unified Payments Interface (UPI), bill payments, loans and insurance. Tata Neu will also provide other services like fashion, gadgets, groceries, travel and health.
Even as regulatory focus has zeroed in on foreign e-commerce giant Amazon, a domestic retail giant has been created almost below the radar in Reliance Retail (RR), one of the most crucial businesses for the group's future. From doorstep delivery of groceries, apparels to branded jewellery, medicines, toys, furniture to high street retailing, RR's presence in the world's fourth largest consumer market is just one part of the story.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted 10-year time to telecom firms like Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices for paying the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR)-related dues to the department of telecommunications with certain conditions.
Further deleveraging needed to cut net debt and sustain operational improvement
Speaking at a fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, he said the big change driving this transformation was the deepening of mobile networks which were working at a much faster pace than before.
Shareholders of Reliance Industries have approved the appointment of Saudi Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan on the company board, with less than 2 per cent of votes cast against the proposal. Disclosing the results of shareholder votes on the appointment, Reliance in a regulatory filing said 98.03 per cent of votes were cast in favour of the resolution to appoint Al-Rumayyan for three years. As many as 10.89 crore shares or 1.96 per cent voted against the resolution, while 3.23 crore votes were declared invalid due to lack of proper authorisation, it said.
Trai calls both Jio and incumbents for a meeting to discuss the issue
RIL was among the top gainers in the Sensex pack, jumping over 3 per cent to hit its record closing high. Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, HUL and ITC were also among the prominent gainers.
RCom had net debt of about Rs 40,222.6 crore at the end of June 30.
The brokerage reduced its target price for the company to Rs 995 per share from Rs 1,350 apiece. Credit Suisse said RIL's liabilities increased from $19 billion to $65 billion in four years.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Monday pressed for bridging the digital divide "both among nations and within nations", saying connectivity and communications have become the fundamental rights of every person. Also, there is a need to bring back the economies around the globe. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum, he said it is difficult to imagine what India would have been without the 4G telecom network during the pandemic. "The digital divide must be bridged, both among nations and within nations.
If the apex court decides on a 15-year repayment tenure, it would pose a grave challenge for the debt ridden VIL.
The Union Cabinet has approved the modalities for holding 5G spectrum auctions, and 72097.85 MHz of radio waves will be put on the block by July-end, an official release said on Wednesday.
Sensex rally was driven by Bajaj FinServ, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Axis Bank. NSE Nifty climbed 326.50 points to end at 15,245.60.
Consolidated revenue rose to a record Rs 163,854 crore.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
The move comes against the backdrop of the US and some of its allies banning the purchase of Chinese telecom gear over security concerns and pressuring other countries to follow suit.
Revenue soared 6.2 per cent to Rs 20,602.2 crore for the three months ended March 31, 2019.
Market expects either a price disruption or differentiated service; combination of both could hurt incumbents.
The announcement quells fears among some telcos that Chinese players might be banned from participating in 5G trials and roll outs.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is in the process of issuing a show-cause notice to Vodafone Idea (Vi) for delaying the payment of licence fee. Companies pay 8 per cent of their adjusted gross revenue as licence fee. This also includes a universal service obligation levy. The fee is collected from each of the 22 telecom circles in the country on a quarterly basis.
Vodafone-Idea (Vi) has said the key hurdle it faces in raising fresh funding, despite interest from investors, is the 'pricing situation' which is also the reason why it has asked the Department of Telecommunica-tions (DoT) for another extension of the moratorium on payment of spectrum instalment by one more year. Responding to a question during an analysts' call on Friday after its quarterly results on the reason for the delay in fund-raising nine months after it was announced, CEO & MD Ravinder Takkar said: "We are in discussions with investors. There is continued interest in investing in the telecom sector in the country. "The biggest hurdle is that the overall industry is under stress because of the pricing situation." He said that once tariffs go up, it will create a significant amount of confidence.
In a dig at Jio's Rs 1,500 4G-enabled feature phone, the Sunil Bharti Mittal-led company said its smartphone would be made available for the price of a feature phone
Six consecutive profitable quarters after an equal number of losses - for Bharti Airtel, the turnaround has been quick. But it is not a result of higher tariffs or absence of exceptional items alone. Execution and strategy are playing a part, too. Bharti Airtel's chief executive officer Gopal Vittal summed it up in a post-result conference call last month. "We track the profit in each of our 237,500 (cell) sites.
Reliance Jio has accused old operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, of "illegally" masquerading wire-line numbers as mobile numbers for "undue enrichment".
