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.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani has set targets for his three kids whom he has identified for takeover of telecom, retail and new energy business. Speaking at his father Dhirubhai's anniversary, celebrated as Reliance Family Day, he said the oil-to-telecom-to-retail conglomerate Reliance industries Ltd has embarked on a journey of comprehensive self-transformation. "The end of 2022 is when Reliance will have crossed the half-way mark of its Golden Decade.
According to insiders, the induction of Jai Anshul would coincide with the birthday of the late patriarch of Reliance group, Dhirubhai Ambani, in the last week of December.
RIL has faced protests from local authorities, activists and residents across India campaigning against masts and roadworks.
More than a year of Covid-19 has pushed most businesses into gloom but Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managed to reduce its gross debt 25 per cent, enabling it to turn towards its next phase of capital expenditure that has come in the form of a Rs 75,000-crore plan for green energy and power storage. The company managed to stay afloat during the pandemic because of its large presence in the consumer-centric businesses of retail and telecommunication (see chart: "A new Reliance"). These two businesses constituted 45 per cent of its EBITDA during FY21 from 36 per cent in FY20.
From PhonePe to Jio, everyone wants to be a Super App but it is still unclear if they will actually work in India.
Reliance has announced that it will roll out its e-commerce platform to as many as 1.2 million retailers and store owners in Gujarat. This is part of a nationwide roll-out that will come later this yea, reports Viveat Susan Pinto.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, bottom, left, says he is fond of Bill Gates' famous quote: "Success is a lousy teacher." Back from a long foreign business trip, the founder-chairman of Bharti Enterprises talks to Malini Bhupta and Kiran Rathee about the challenges posed by Reliance Jio and how he is determined to come out on top once again. Mittal says , today, Airtel is as ready as Jio in pure-play 4G operations.
Star India successfully bagged the global media rights for the next five seasons of Indian Premier League -- including broadcast and digital -- for a massive Rs. 16,347.50 crores ($2.55 billion), in Mumbai, on Monday.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
The merits and demerits of the telcos' 5G strategy however is clearly dependent on the financial muscle of players, reports Surajeet Das Gupta.
Tata Motors is likely to exit the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 indices once the demerger process of its commercial vehicle (CV) and passenger vehicle (PV) businesses is complete, analysts at Nuvama Institutional Equities said. They have compared the development with Reliance Industries (RIL) and Jio Financial Services, which got listed separately and eventually (in the next few days) got excluded from the domestic indices.
Its success script: Investing more in local content ecosystem; growing its partnership footprint.
Amazon Prime Video has announced 69 assorted Web series and movies, and the slate sure looks interesting.
RBI's exercise will take into account standards of governance, the viability of the payment bank (PB) business model, and changes, if any, if needed.
Mukesh Ambani has reclaimed the top position on the 2023 Forbes list of India's 100 Richest with a net worth of $92 billion. The fortune of infrastructure magnate Gautam Adani, who rose meteorically to overtake Ambani as India's richest person for the first time last year, has slipped to the second position. Adani's net worth, which includes that of his family, fell by a whopping $82 billion to $68 billion, after a report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research in January sent his group's shares tumbling.
Devita Saraf, the founder of Vu Televisions, tells Karan Choudhury why she issued a front page newspaper ad praising Donald Trump last week.
Gross refining margins may decline sequentially but improving petro-chem margins will boost earnings
India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
RIL's standalone net profit rose one per cent quarter-on-quarter
Pointing out to the 133-acre Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City on the outskirts of the financial capital, he said there is huge realty play opportunity that RCom's erstwhile corporate headquarters possesses, and pegged the potential value creation at the site at Rs 25,000 crore.
Engage, don't entice, advises advertising guru Sandeep Goyal.
In March this year, Worldline India launched Vabox (Voice Alert Box): merchants will now get instant audio alerts on the settlement of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments via QR codes in languages of their choice when customers check out. "They needn't worry whether the amount has been credited to their account," says Gulshan Pruthi, the firm's executive vice-president. The French payments giant will roll out 500,000 Vaboxes in the initial phase.
Amazon Prime leads the race to buy digital rights for Bollywood blockbusters with Hotstar and Netflix trailing far behind.
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.
After initial success, data use is stagnating and getting consumers to spend additional money for high-speed internet is proving to be difficult for telcos.
'If you are going to have only a handful of telecom players on whom the entire dream of Digital India rests, it's important they are financially sustainable.'
Mukesh Ambani said the Digital India initiative has the potential to transform the lives of 1.2 billion Indians using the power of digital technology.
Rediff readers tell us what has changed in the last 10 years for them.
The Harvard alum has known the Yale alum for ages, but hit it off recently.
From promoters losing their firms to consumers realising there are no free lunches, 2019 was a year of getting real,says Shailesh Dobhal.
Footfalls will invariably come down to a trickle even after lockdown restrictions go away, and the only way to prevent someone else from poaching your consumer is to go down to the consumer herself. Consumers will prefer products and services to be delivered to their doorstep, hygienically and safely.
Spectrum auction on Thursday entered the 10th day of bidding and started off from Rs 61,091.83 crore (Rs 610.91 billion) in terms of value.
Reliance Industries has doubled the average life of its debt to around 7.5 years.
'For all of us at Amazon, it is 'Bharat first'.' 'We are keeping the Indian customer at the centre of what we are doing.'
The new executive director of Reliance Capital has big shoes to fill in every way.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday hinted at rolling out 5G telecom services in the second half of 2021 and said policy steps are needed to accelerate the early rollout of ultra-high-speed 5G services that are affordable and available everywhere. Ambani, whose four-year-old telecom venture Jio has captured the No.1 spot offering free voice calling and data at dirt-cheap rates, also pitched for developing hardware manufacturing in India, saying the nation cannot rely on imports in such a critical area. 5G is the 5th generation mobile network that enables connecting virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. India, he said, is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world.
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.
After a two year run-in with controversies, telecom sector now looks stable and seems back on its feet with initial investment proposal of over Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) received in 2013.
The auction will continue on Tuesday as there is still some spectrum left.