5 important highlights from the RIL AGM announcement

Mumbai: Reliance Industries Limited has made made several notable announcements at its recently concluded Annual General Meeting on Thursday.

Here are highlights from Chairman Mukesh Ambani's speech from the 44th AGM that saw participation from thousands of employees, shareholders and general public.

1. Yassir Al-Rumayyan, the Chairman of Saudi Aramco and Governor of Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Public Investment Fund is formally inducted as an Independent Director on the board of RIL. Mukesh Ambani added that Rumayyan's joining was the beginning of "internationalisation" of Reliance. "I am sure that we will immensely benefit from his rich experience of running one of the world’s largest companies, and also one of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the world," Ambani said.

2. Financial Performance: RIL reported consolidated revenue of nearly Rs 540,000 crore with a sharp increase from our consumer businesses. Consolidated EBITDA is up by Rs 98,000 crore -- nearly 50% contributed by consumer businesses. Net profit during the pandemic year of FY21 is up by 34.8 percent to Rs 53,739 crore.

3. Glitzy Launches: Unlike last AGMs this year the glitz was limited to JioPhone Next, the latest 5G smartphone from Jio. Ambani also emphasized that the time has come for India to be 2G Mukt (free of) and 5G Yukt (powered by). The Jio Phone Next is a feature smartphone powered by an optimised Android OS jointly developed with Google. "JIOPHONE Next is expected to hit the market from Ganesh Chaturthi, 10 September 2021."

4. Carbon Neutrality & New Energy focus: RIL also placed emphasis on going net Carbon neutral by 2035. This is earlier than commitments set forth by Unilever (2039) and Amazon (2040).

Elaborating on Green Energy, Ambani added that Reliance is working on New Materials and Green Chemicals in the area of hydrogen and Solar ecosystems. He also added that the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex has been setup on a space of 5,000 acres at Jamnagar. Reliance will be building at least four giga factories, an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory, storage battery factory, electrolyser factory and also a fuel cell factory. In this regards, Reliance, "Over the next 3 years we will invest over 60,000 crore rupees," said Ambani.

5. Other Significant Numbers: On the positive aspect, RIL has shared encouraging numbers such as,

• 1. "In spite of COVID, JIO sustained its track record of robust performance. JIO became the first operator outside China to cross 400 million mobile subscribers in a single country."
• 2. JioMart registered over 6.5 lakh peak orders in a single day - selling over a billion units of groceries or about 30 lakh units per day. JioMart has onboarded over 3 lakh merchants or shop keeper partners across 150 cities in the business.
• 3. In its apparel business, RIL sells nearly five lakh units per day and over 18 crore units during the year which is equivalent to dressing the entire population of UK, Germany and Spain once.
• 4. In the last decade, Reliance has invested over $90 billion in creating substantial wealth for the nation and value for the shareholders. In the coming decade, Reliance has the capacity to catalyse investments of over $ 200 billion directly and through partners. These investments will also create over 10 lakh new employment opportunities, besides helping small and medium enterprises across the country.
• 5. At Rs 1.45 lakh crores (US$ 19.9 billion), RIL is India's single largest exporter accounting for 6.8% of India's total merchandise exports across 107 countries. The contribution last year was Rs 2.02 lakh crores or 9.1 percent of India's exports.  Reliance added 75,000 new jobs this year. 
  
  It also continues to be India's highest payer of customs and excise duty in the private sector with payments of Rs 21,044 crore; Highest payers of GST and VAT at Rs 85,306 crore, highest payers of Income Tax in the private sector at Rs 3,213 crore.