Reliance will be in top 10 global firms: Ambani

NEW DELHI: Having created businesses ranging from world’s largest single-location oil refining complex to nation’s largest mobile network operators in just few years, Mukesh Ambani says Reliance Industries will be among the top 10 business conglomerates of the world.

Addressing employees on Reliance Family Day - the birthday of the group’s founder Dhirubhai Ambani, he said Reliance is now aiming to consolidate a place among global leaders in digital data platforms and AI adoption.

“Today, the domestic and global environments for business are changing very fast. There is simply no room for complacency,” he said. “Reliance was never complacent in the past, and Reliance will never be complacent in future.” Reliance, he said, is known for “disrupting the market through constant innovation and reinvention.”

Starting with a small textile manufacturing unit in Mumbai, Reliance did backward integration - it ventured into petrochemicals (which provide feedstock for textiles) and became the nation’s largest producer. It then set up an oil refinery - the largest in the country and expanded it to being the world’s biggest single-location oil refining complex.

In 2005, it entered the retail sector and is now the largest operator of grocery stores, hypermarkets, and online retail in the country. In 2016, it launched telecom service Jio, which quickly became the largest operator in India and the third largest in the world. Reliance is building giga-scale factories for new energy businesses and has also forayed into financial services.

“We have shown the courage to set the bar high, and the ability to jump even higher to create new records. This is how Reliance has achieved perennial growth,” Ambani, chairman and MD of Reliance, said.