Mukesh Ambani announced on Thursday that Reliance Industries will invest $15 billion in clean energy over the next three years, and that the $15 billion deal with Saudi Aramco will be completed this year. At Reliance Industries Ltd’s 44th annual general meeting, Ambani promised the launch of the Jio-Google phone in September and the arrival of 5G soon, as well as an update on the digital and retail businesses.
Reliance Industries’ stock fell more than 2% on Thursday, the day of its annual general meeting. On the BSE, the stock closed at 2,153.35, down 2.35 percent. It fell 2.95 percent to 2,140 during the day. On the NSE, it fell 2.35 percent to close at 2,153.50.
Here are the five key takeaways from the Reliance AGM:
- The Aramco agreement
Shareholders were told by Mukesh Ambani. This year, Reliance Industries Ltd hopes to formalise its partnership with Saudi Aramco, and its chairman, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, will become an independent director on the Indian conglomerate’s board. “Al-Rumayyan joining our board is also the beginning of internationalisation of Reliance. You will hear more about our international plans in the times to come,” Ambani said on Thursday.
“We look forward to welcoming Saudi Aramco as a strategic partner in our O2C business. I expect our partnership to be formalised in an expeditious manner during this year, after obtaining required regulatory clearances,” he said.
In 2019, Reliance announced the sale of a 20% stake in its oil-to-chemicals business to Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter, for $15 billion. However, the agreement came to a halt after the pandemic caused a drop in oil prices and demand last year.
- A new green energy venture
Mukesh Ambani announced that Reliance Industries, which operates the world’s largest refining complex in Jamnagar, Gujarat, will invest $10.1 billion in clean energy over the next three years with the goal of becoming a carbon-neutral company by 2035. “The world is entering a new energy era, which is going to be highly disruptive. The age of fossil fuels, which powered economic growth globally for nearly three centuries, cannot continue much longer,” Ambani said.
Reliance Industries will invest 60,000 crore in Jamnagar to build four “giga factories” to produce solar cells and modules, energy storage batteries, fuel cells, and green hydrogen. It will also invest Rs 15,000 crore in its new renewable energy business’s value chain and other partnerships. By 2030, Reliance will have installed solar capacity of at least 100 gigawatts (GW). In three years, a total of 75,000 crore will be invested in the new energy business.
This will take place on the 5,000-acre Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex in Jamnagar. “Jamnagar was the birthplace of our previous energy company. Jamnagar will also serve as the birthplace of our new energy venture “Ambani stated.
JioPhone Next is the third phone in the JioPhone series.
JioPhone Next, a feature-rich, low-cost smartphone co-developed by Jio and Google, will be available starting September 10 and will be the world’s most affordable smartphone, according to Ambani. The “extremely affordable” smartphone, according to him, will include cutting-edge features such as voice assistant and language translation, automatic read-aloud, and a smart camera with augmented reality filters, among others. “This (the smartphone) is a testimony to a global technology giant and a national technology champion working together to make truly a breakthrough product that can be first introduced in India and then taken to the rest of the world,” Ambani said.
He didn’t say how much it would cost, but said it would be the cheapest smartphone “not just in India, but globally.” Last year, Ambani announced a partnership between Jio and Google to develop an Android-based smartphone operating system.
- The launch of 5G
Mukesh Ambani announced a new 5G partnership between Google Cloud and Reliance Jio, claiming that the company has successfully demonstrated speeds well in excess of 1 GBPS in India. Its “Made in India” solution is “globally competitive,” according to Ambani, who also expressed confidence in the company’s ability to be the first to launch full-fledged 5G services.
Jio is working to make India ‘2G-mukt’ (free of 2G), as well as ‘5G-yukt’ (5G enabled), according to Ambani. Jio’s engineers have created a fully cloud-native, software-defined, and digitally managed 5G solution that is 100 percent home-grown. For 5G field trials, the company recently received regulatory approvals and trial spectrum.
5. Reliance Retail
Ambani said Reliance Retail continues to be among the fastest-growing retailers in the world and is committed to growing the business “so that we are among the top 10 retailers globally”. “I am confident that Reliance Retail is on a hyper growth trajectory to grow at least three times in the next three to five years,” he said.
Reliance Retail, which currently employs over 200,000 people, aims to further create employment for over 10 lakh people and enable the livelihoods for more over the next three years. “Even in these challenging times, I am personally proud to report to you that Reliance Retail has not only protected jobs but also created over 65,000 new jobs,” said Ambani.
