Reliance AGM 2022: Key Highlights Of Mukesh Ambani's Speech

Reliance’s next-generation leaders are confidently taking over the reins across businesses, Ambani said.

• Akash and Isha have assumed leadership roles in Jio and Retail, respectively.

• Anant has joined new energy business.

• All of them are being mentored on a daily basis by RIL’s senior leaders, including chairman and the board of directors.

Shares of Reliance Industries erased gains and is trading nearly 1% lower in a volatile session even as Ambani was addressing shareholders. The index heavyweight, however, has outperformed the stock benchmark Nifty which fell 1.4%.

Trading volume is nearly twice the 30-day average.

Of the 38 analysts tracking the company, 31 maintain 'buy', five suggest 'hold' and three recommend 'sell'. The return potential of the stock is 10.9%.

Source: Bloomberg

Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex is coming up over a 5,000-acre facility in Jamnagar, with an aim to establish and enable at least 100GW of solar energy by 2030, Ambani said.

Reliance acquired 100% stake in REC Solar, a pioneer with over 25 years of experience in solar industry, and a global technology leader in highest efficiency solar panels, he added.

Reliance aims to progressively transition from grey hydrogen to green hydrogen by 2025, after proving its cost and performance targets, Ambani said.

• Captive requirements allow base load.

• Investments of Rs 75,000 crore and double down.

• RIL partnered with Stiesdal to accelerate cost reduction and commercialisation of their pressurised alkaline electrolyser technology to produce green hydrogen using solar power and water.

Ambani announced a new gigafactory for power electronics and software systems in Jamnagar.

• Ten gigawatt solar PV cell factory with REC Technology to commence operations in 2024.

• To expand capacity to 20 GW by 2026 in phases.

• To create end-to-end battery ecosystem.

• The design and manufacturing capabilities in power electronics and associated software systems will integrate with RIL's capabilities of telecommunications, cloud computing and IoT platform.

• To support the solar energy capabilities, Reliance will also invest in glass and POE film manufacturing - both having natural synergies with its chemical and materials business.

• Have formed strategic partnership with Lithium Werks, Faradion, Ambri.

• Aim to start production of battery packs by 2023 and scale up to five GwH by 2024 and 50 GWh by 2027.

• In talks with global players for partnership to deliver green hydrogen at lower cost for green hydrogen electrolyser gigafactory.

Ambani said that RIL will invest Rs 75,000 crore on existing value chains for the oil-to-chemicals business in the next three years.

• Reliance will continue to invest in O2C business to expand capacities in existing product lines as well as to add new value chains with aim to maximise oil-to-chemicals conversion.

• Create integrated streams of value-added chemicals and green materials from feedstock.

Reliance Retail’s strategy is to integrate with millions of small merchants and provide them a platform to prosper, Isha Ambani said. Since the launch two years ago, it has grown merchant partners base to over 20 lakh partners, she said.

• Launched JioMart Digital initiative during the year enabling small electronics merchants to sell the entire product portfolio of Reliance Retail on an assisted selling model.

• During the year, the business launched New Commerce operations through Netmeds Wholesale and onboarded merchants across 1,900 towns.

• AJIO business, Reliance Retail’s new commerce initiative, works with merchant partners across 3,500 towns, giving them access to a collection of over 8,000 regional and national brands and a wide portfolio of in-house brands.

• The new commerce initiative is on course to partner with one crore merchants as it expands presence to cover the entire country in next five years.

Reliance Retail achieved a record of Rs 2 lakh crore turnover and Ebitda of Rs 12,000 crore, and is among the top ten retailers in Asia, Isha Ambani said.

• Served over 200 million registered customers, equivalent to the entire population of the UK, France and Italy at Reliance Retail’s physical stores and digital platforms.

• 4.5 billion visits to the digital platforms, up by 2.3x YoY.

• Its digital commerce platforms continued its growth with nearly six lakh orders being delivered every day, an increase of 2.5 times over last year.

• It doubled warehousing and fulfilment space to 670 million cubic feet, linking supply locations with demand centres across the country.

• Own brands contribute to over 65% of overall revenues.

Ambani said media business achieved its highest growth on the back of strong engagement, resulting in record subscriptions and advertising revenues. Viacom18 consolidated its leadership position with a high-decibel entry into sports, bagging the digital rights of IPL for five years, he said.

Jio is privileged to have some of the world’s leading technology players as strong partners in the ‘Made in India’ 5G collaboration, Ambani said.

• Meta: for immersive technology.

• Google: to develop ultra-affordable 5G smartphones; Google Cloud

• Microsoft: for Azure ecosystem, vibrant ecosystem of cloud-enabled business applications and solutions.

• Intel: for Cloud-scale data centres and 5G edge locations.

• Well-established relationships with leading global network technology providers like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Cisco.

• Jio also forged a collaboration with Qualcomm to develop 5G solutions for India, which can be taken to the rest of the world.

RIL announced the launch of Jio’s innovative solution to allow customers enjoy fibre-like data speeds over the air without any wires – called JioAirFiber.

It has developed a JioAirFiber Home Gateway, which is a wireless, simple, single-device solution to have a Wi-Fi hotspot in a home, connected to ultra-high-speed internet using True 5G.

• JioAirFiber can be installed in homes for 5G experience.

• Cloud gaming, augmented reality will be enabled on 5G even on move.

• Using JioAirFiber, people can do away with all expenses related to buying computer hardware and periodically upgrading it, and opt to use a virtual PC hosted in the cloud – called Jio Cloud PC.

• With no upfront investment or tension of periodical upgrading, a user needs to pay only to the extent used, resulting in a super-affordable way to bring the power of a PC, even multiple PCs, to every Indian home and business.

• With single device JioAirFiber, it will be real easy to quickly connect any home or office to gigabit-speed Internet.

• With the simplicity of JioAirFiber, hundreds of millions of homes and offices can be connected to ultra-high-speed broadband in a very short period. With it, India can rank among the top-10 nations, even for fixed broadband.

Reliance Jio to invest Rs 2 lakh crore for 5G network, Ambani said.

• India still lags behind rest of the world in terms of fixed broadband.

• Jio to roll out entire 5G in every town and taluka by Dec 2023.

• Jio Fiber has over 7 million connected premises in India.

• Jio announced launch of Jio 5G Services by Diwali 2022 in Metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai.

• It will be expanded to other cities and towns in phases rapidly to cover entire India in 18 months by December 2023.

• Jio has indigenously developed an end-to-end 5G stack, which is fully cloud native, software defined, digitally managed with support for even advanced features like Quantum Security.

• Already deployed this Made-In-India 5G stack in Jio5G network, with sufficient capacity to serve hundreds of millions of users right from day one.

• Ambani said two out of three customers are choosing Jio Fiber.

• Jio Fiber is the largest FTTH provider with 7 million subscribers.

• Jio 5G will be standalone 5G with zero dependency on 4G.

• Jio 5G to offer private network to enterprises.

Ambani said the 25-year road map by PM will be most transformational. The next generation will achieve more than what entire generation since Independence has achieved, he said.

• Aadhar, Jandhan, Rupay, UPI, Aayushman Bharat and Startup India were possible due to robust Jio network.

There is uncertainty again due to heightened geopolitical tensions and global risks, Mukesh Ambani said at the 45th AGM of RIL.

There is severe economic stress in many parts of the world, he said.

• Severe economic stress globally.

• High inflation supply chain disruptions affecting growth.

Watch the speech here live:

Reliance Industries was trading 1% higher just ahead of the AGM. Shares of RIL withstood the selling pressure, outperforming the benchmark Nifty while group companies Reliance Industrial Infra, TV18 Broadcast and Network18 declined in a weak market, amid fall in global equities after U.S. Federal Reserve officials emphasised the need to continue with monetary tightening in the central bank's efforts to rein in inflation.

Mukesh Ambani is also expected to offer further clarity on the succession planning of his group companies, Bloomberg reported. Ambani had already expedited the process and named his eldest son, Akash Ambani as the chairman of its telecom unit Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. in June. Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani and younger son Anant Ambani already hold directorship positions at the group's unlisted companies.

Bloomberg had reported last year that Mukesh Ambani will be taking a page out of the playbook of Walmart Inc.’s Walton family.

Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd. withstood the selling pressure, outperforming the benchmark Nifty while group companies Reliance Industrial Infra, TV18 Broadcast and Network18 declined in a weak market, amid fall in global equities after U.S. Federal Reserve officials emphasised the need to continue with monetary tightening in the central bank's efforts to rein in inflation. The comments have spurred a decline in global equities ahead of RIL 45th Annual General Meeting. RIL's chairman Mukesh Ambani is expected to make announcements on listing or strategic sale of key businesses, roadmap for green energy transition, in today's meeting.

RIL's AGMs are known for featuring strategic announcements. Listing timeline for Reliance Jio Infocomm, stake sale in new energy businesses, comments on 5G rollout and monetisation plans are awaited.

JM Financial believes that the green energy could power RIL's growth in next five to seven years while HSBC Broking anticipates concrete timelines for various projects in new energy business.

Shares of RIL have gained over 10% in 2022 compared to 0.5% rise for Sensex. Of the 39 analysts tracking the company, 31 maintain 'buy', five suggest 'hold' and three recommend 'sell'. The overall consensus price of analysts tracked by Bloomberg implies an upside of 10.6%.

Source: Bloomberg, Brokerage notes

Reliance Industries Ltd.'s Chairman Mukesh Ambani is expected to offer a road map on listing or strategic sale of key businesses, including clean energy, at the oil-to-retail conglomerate's annual general meeting on Monday.

Over the last decade, Ambani has been making strategic announcements at the AGMs, which are eagerly awaited by investors. This time, the expectation is that his speech at the 45th AGM would revolve around timelines for listing of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., retail and oil-to-chemicals units.

Besides, the potential strategic stake sale in new energy businesses, the likely 5G rollout and its monetisation plans would be the key topics, according to a report by JM Financial.

RIL is aggressively investing and partnering with other businesses across the green energy value chain and has reiterated a commitment of $10 billion in capital expenditure over three years. “It aims to scale up the business over the next couple of years and expects this new growth engine to outshine all existing growth engines in just five-to-seven years,” JM Financial said.

HSBC Broking said so far they have seen limited communication of strategy on the new energy business. "We expect some details and potential timelines for various projects under execution.”

HSBC also expects to hear the aspirations of RIL's 5G telecom business and its distribution plans. "On the retail side, we expect to hear how they are integrating with the kirana shops,” it said.