Retail and Jio are named as Reliance Industries' main growth platforms

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jul 26, 2017

After recent ambitious capital expenditure, Reliance Industries’ retail and mobile sections have become major contributors to profits announced after the last quarter, along with its energy and petrochemicals section.

Reliance Jio, a LTE mobile network operator, is known for its highly competitive pricing and the company stated that it had over one million paying customers, most of which are part of a payment plan of 349 rupees or higher. As Reliance Jio believes smartphone penetration will increase from 30 percent to 60 percent of the mobile market in the next three to four years, data traffic is only increasing along with purchases of data packs. Therefore, Reliance Jio is fast becoming one of the strongest arms of Reliance Industries.

Reliance Retail stated in a presentation made after disclosing their quarterly earnings that it experienced an 84 percent jump in diesel sales and that now around two thirds of transactions are made with non-cash transactions. Reliance Brands, a subsidiary of Reliance Retail is also expanding and bringing in fashion labels from abroad such as its recent partnership talks with Valentino.

In the past, it was only its core business of refining and petrochemicals that drove Reliance Industries’ growth but, with last quarter’s financial results, we can see the rising importance of both Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail for the company. After crossing the 9,000 crore mark (approximately 1.35 billion) for profits made in the last quarter, Mukesh Ambani, leader of the conglomerate, stated that, “The golden decade has begun” and that, “Relaince Retail [and] Reliance Jio are hyper growth platforms”.