Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani is hosting the 44th annual general meeting (AGM) virtually.
Mukesh Ambani said that the company's business grew despite challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was mainly due to a sharp increase in its consumer business, which now contributes roughly half of RIL's operating profit.
The company reported a consolidated revenue of Rs 5,40,000 crore and consolidated EBITDA of Rs 98,000 crore.
RIL chairman further said that he expects a partnership between RIL and Saudi Aramco to be "formalised in an expeditious manner this year".
Despite challenges due to the pandemic, the two parties have made "substantial progress" in talks, Ambani said. He added that he expects strong global growth to benefit RIL's oil-to-chemicals business.
Ambani also announced that H.E. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, chairman of Saudi Aramco and governor of the Kingdom's wealth fundthe Public Investment Fundwill join the board of RIL as an independent director as part of the deal.
Emphasising on the need for a transition towards clean energy, the company's chairman laid out the roadmap of RIL's new energy business.
"We have started work on developing the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex on 5,000 acres in Jamnagar," Ambani said. "It will be amongst the largest such integrated renewable energy manufacturing facilities in the world."
Ambani said that RIL plans to build four Giga Factories for each of these task - Production of solar energy, Storage of intermittent energy, Production of green hydrogen and Fuel cell factory for converting hydrogen to usable power.
Ambani said that RIL will set up two additional divisions - Renewable Energy Project Management and Construction Division and a Renewable Energy Project Finance Divisionto further strengthen its renewable ambitions.
Reliance will thus create and offer a fully integrated, end-to-end renewables energy ecosystem. Our overall investment in New Energy business will be Rs 75,000 crore in 3 years, the chairman said.
Mukesh Ambani has revealed the JioPhone Nextan affordable smartphone co-developed with Google that is aimed at first-time internet users.
The phone will be available in the market from 10 September 2021. "JioPhone Next will be by far the most affordable smartphone globally," Ambani said. The phone will be powered by a highly optimised version of Android, Ambani said.
"A new 5G partnership between Google Cloud and Jio will help more than a billion Indians connect to a faster internet, support businesses in digital transformation and lay foundation for next phase of India's digitisation," Google-parent Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Mukesh Ambani said that Reliance Jio is doing a trial run with Facebook to integrate JioMart with WhatsApp. The initial response from customers has been encouraging, Ambani said.
RIL is the largest private sector corporation in India. Its activities span hydrocarbon exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and digital services.
The scrip fell 2.66% to end at Rs 2146.50 on the BSE.
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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