"We are delighted to welcome Google as a strategic investor in Jio Platforms. We have signed a binding partnership and an investment agreement under which Google will invest Rs 33,737 crores for a 7.7 per cent stake in Jio Platforms," Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual general meeting.
The Tata group on Thursday launched its super app, Tata Neu, bringing all its brands in one platform as it seeks to play a major role in the Indian ecommerce space currently dominated by the likes of Amazon and Flipkart.
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.
Ramping up e-commerce operations and going beyond its current strongholds are key challenges for the grocery chain in its battle with Mukesh Ambani's retail behemoth.
Global investment management firm Bernstein has pegged the enterprise valuation of Reliance Industries (RIL)'s 85 per cent stake in Reliance Retail at $111 billion, while valuing the Mukesh Ambani-led company's 66.5 per cent stake in telecom and digital platform arm Reliance Jio at $88 billion. Reliance Industries had earlier planned to list both its subsidiaries to unlock value for its shareholders but hadn't fixed any timeline. The report said that Reliance Retail had raised $6 billion by diluting a 10.1 per cent stake, while Jio Platforms raised $20 billion from investors by selling 33 per cent in 2020.
US media reports that Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, could be the latest technology giant to downsize its workforce have triggered trepidation among its 300-400 employees in India, according to people familiar with the matter. "We have not heard much about the impact (of downsizing) on India. "It's a wait-and-watch situation. Certainly, there is uncertainty," said a source.
This marks the second billion-dollar investment by Silver Lake in a Reliance subsidiary after the $1.35 billion investment in Jio Platforms.
An emergency arbitration hearing between Amazon and retail conglomerate Future Group took place last week and a verdict is expected in the next few days, according to sources.
Credit Suisse said if the deal fructifies, then this will bring together the largest offline and online retailers in India.
While Jio MF will undoubtedly grow in size, it will have to cross multiple hurdles even to emerge as the market leader, observes Debashis Basu.
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.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Monday laid bare the succession plan at India's most valuable company, identifying twins children Akash and Isha for telecom and retail leadership, and youngest son Anant for new energy unit. He, however, insisted he isn't retiring yet and will "continue to provide hands-on leadership as before". At the annual shareholders' meeting of Reliance Industries Ltd, he said the robust architecture that he has announced will ensure the firm remains "a unit, well-integrated and secure institution even as it develops existing businesses and adds new growth engines."
Mukesh Ambani has resigned from the board of his group's telecom arm, Reliance Jio and handed over the reins of the company to elder son Akash, a step seen as succession planning by the 65-year old billionaire. In a stock exchange filing, Reliance Jio Infocomm said the company's board at a meeting on June 27, "approved the appointment of Akash M Ambani, non-executive director, as chairman of the board of directors of the company." This comes after his father resigned with effect from close of working hours on June 27, it said.
Reliance Jio, together with partners, has tested its 5G solutions in India, successfully demonstrating speeds of over 1 GBPS, and its 'Made in India' solution is "globally competitive", RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Thursday. Ambani also exuded confidence that the company will be the first to launch full-fledged 5G services in the country. Jio is not just working to make India '2G-mukt' (free from 2G) but also '5G-yukt' (5G empowered), he added. Jio's engineers have developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution that is fully cloud native, software defined, and digitally managed.
India's total online shopper base at 30 per cent of its internet population is low when compared with 78 per cent in China and 70-plus per cent in the US.
FB deal puts RIL on course to be debt-free next year; Reliance Retail biggest gainer from WhatsApp, JioMart arrangement.
Jiophone Next will be available from Diwali for Rs 6,499 per unit for customers wanting to buy the smartphone without financing option, Jio and Google said in a joint statement on Friday. Jio is also giving a finance option for the Jiophone Next where users can make an upfront payment of Rs 1,999 and pay the rest in easy monthly instalments spread across 18-24 months, the company said in a statement. "This is the first time that a phone in the entry-level category is getting a financing option.
Flipkart, the e-commerce company owned by Walmart, is intensifying its efforts to achieve profitability as it is eyeing a valuation of approximately $60 billion at the time of its initial public offering (IPO), now planned in 2025-2026, instead of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm might consider listing in the US or any other geography, including India. The company, which counts the likes of Amazon and Reliance's JioMart among its competitors in India's burgeoning e-commerce market, had also contemplated launching an IPO in 2022-2023.
'For all of us at Amazon, it is 'Bharat first'.' 'We are keeping the Indian customer at the centre of what we are doing.'
Its trajectory in telecom is well known but now it is pushing for a similar leap into the ranks of the top players in its other businesses: media and entertainment, e-commerce, a series of online businesses ranging from health to education, and retail.
Flipkart Group on Monday said it has raised $3.6 billion (about Rs 26,805.6 crore) in funding led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Walmart, valuing the e-commerce giant at $37.6 billion. The company, which competes with Amazon, Reliance Industries' JioMart and others in the burgeoning Indian e-commerce market, said it will continue to make deeper investments across people, technology, supply chain and infrastructure to address the requirements of a rapidly growing consumer base in the country. The current funding round has also seen participation from sovereign funds DisruptAD, Qatar Investment Authority, Khazanah Nasional Berhad as well as marquee investors Tencent, Willoughby Capital, Antara Capital, Franklin Templeton and Tiger Global.
While the investment amount could not be immediately ascertained, a report pegged it at about $2 billion.
The latest deal would give Facebook deeper access to India, the second largest internet market after China.
Akash Ambani's first big job as he takes over as chairman of Reliance Jio, the group's telecom arm, is a no-brainer - he has to get his company through the long-awaited 5G auctions that are a few weeks away. But his bigger job, analysts said, will be to lead the transformation of the telecom company into a tech giant, a process that is underway as it seeks to list in the US. Insiders said there has been plenty of debate within the company's top executives on the auction strategy.
The partnership will also see the two parties cooperate on technology initiatives, including development of affordable smartphones.
Reliance Jio and Facebook will look to use WhatsApp for delivering goods from local neighbourhood kirana stores to consumers before expanding collaboration in education and healthcare sector, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said soon after announcing the mega Rs 43,574 -crore deal. "All of us at Reliance and Jio are delighted to welcome Facebook Inc," he said in a short video message posted on the group's social media handles.
Udaan - India's largest business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company - has laid off about 180 employees, or 4-5 per cent of its workforce of 4,000, in a move to drive cost efficiency, revealed sources. They said the layoffs have happened across various department functions. The layoffs have happened at a time when the Bengaluru-based firm is trying to turn into a publicly listed entity in 18-24 months.
Fresh capital will help Flipkart further grow its e-commerce marketplace in India as the world's second-largest internet market begins to recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
Telecom operators, including Reliance Jio, have been demanding "same service same rules" regime which means that mobile applications providing calls and messaging services should also be made to comply with set of rules that are mandatory for mobile service providers.
Despite a massive underperformance at the bourses since the last six months, analysts are turning optimistic on Reliance Industries (RIL). Those at Jefferies, for instance, say that the company is a proxy play for India's consumption growth story. The key catalysts for the stock, according to a Jeffries note, include faster-than-expected market share gain in retail, oil-to-chemicals (O2C) stake sale, recovery in gross refining margins (GRM), potential public listing of Jio and even a possible banking licence going ahead. That apart, analysts feel any tariff hike in Reliance Jio (RJio) - its telecom venture - will also aid performance. With balance sheet adequately de-levered, proceeds from a strategic stake sale in the O2C business will create a sizeable war chest for the company, analysts say.
'We are having an outsize impact not only on the lives of the customers and livelihood, but also the economy of India.'
For last two months, much of the discussion, a large part of due diligence, agreement negotiations, etc, have happened remotely.
Meesho has emerged as the second-largest player by order share in this year's festive sales till now, surpassing Amazon, while Flipkart Group platforms topped the market in both orders and gross merchandise value (GMV), according to according to a report by consultancy firm Redseer. It said Flipkart Group maintained its leadership position with a 62 per cent market share in terms of GMV during the first week of the festive season, followed by Amazon which had 26 per cent share, while the remaining 12 per cent was distributed among other e-commerce players. In terms of order volume, Flipkart Group again leads the market with about 49 per cent share and SoftBank-backed Meesho ranks second with about 21 per cent order share, according to Redseer.
Flipkart has promoted several of its leaders into newer roles at a time when the Walmart-owned e-commerce giant has internally raised its IPO (initial public offering) valuation target to about $60 billion and aims for a US listing in 2023, according to the sources. "I am delighted to announce the promotion of some of our exemplary leaders," said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer, Flipkart Group, in an internal note, and which has been reviewed by Business Standard. "Each of them has been instrumental in delivering impact and creating long-term value for Flipkart.
Live commerce, quick commerce, group buying, WhatsApp commerce, dukaantech have made their mark.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
Online play is a priority now -- so far unthinkable in a business that's all about a meaningful interface with kirana stores.
This year's list includes 40 influential people under 40 years of age in five categories -- finance, technology, healthcare, government and politics, and media and entertainment.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is tripling its sourcing from India to about $10 billion a year by 2027, said Judith McKenna, president, and chief executive officer of Walmart International, the segment which includes the company's operations outside the US. "To achieve this, we are growing our sourcing team in India," said McKenna, during a fireside chat with YourStory founder Shradha Sharma at Converge@Walmart, the flagship event of Walmart Global Tech India. "Walmart has a 20-year history of sourcing from India and already exports more than $3 billion worth of Made-in-India goods each year to 14 markets worldwide." McKenna said the company has expertise in processes such as international standards and demand forecasting that businesses need to get ready to export.
'The reality is no one, including some of the names that have shown up in the last few weeks, have any unilateral decision-making power in this,' Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan tells Peerzada Abrar.
