Heena Sharma Blog

  Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd will bear the cost of vaccinating its employees and their immediate family, totaling an estimated 12.2 lakh, as the oil-to-telecom conglomerate looks to safeguard them against the COVID-19 virus . India's largest private company joins the likes of IT giants Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Accenture, and public sector lender State Bank of India among others who are bearing the cost of vaccination of their employees and their dependents. "As per our earlier commitment, Reliance will bear the full cost of vaccination for you, your spouse, your parents, and vaccine-eligible-aged children. You and your family's safety and well-being is our responsibility," said Nita Ambani, non-executive director, Reliance Industries and chairperson of Reliance Foundation, in an internal communication to all employees. The firm has tied-up with specific hospitals to roll outthe vaccination drive for employees at the...

  Facebook Inc., which was struggling for years to win a permit to operate its WhatsApp payments service in India, finally got approval for the roll-out, marking a breakthrough year for the tech giant that also saw it partnering billionaire Mukesh Ambani to expand in the world’s biggest open technology market. WhatsApp pay can go live using the homegrown, multibank Unified Payments Interface, its operator the National Payments Corporation of India said in a statement Thursday. The U.S. social media giant can gradually expand its UPI base starting with as many as 20 million users. Facebook has been testing WhatsApp payments in India since early 2018. The approval is the latest milestone for the billionaire Mark Zuckerberg-helmed firm that plowed $5.7 billion by agreeing to buy a 9.99% stake in Ambani’s digital services unit, Jio Platforms Ltd., in April. Ambani’s unit has attracted more than $20 billion from investors including Intel Corp. and Google, as global tech giants dou...

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has started testing WhatsApp to connect customers to grocery stores, days after Facebook decided to invest $5.7 billion in digital assets controlled by the company. JioMart , an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, "has already started interacting with customers on WhatsApp for grocery orders" in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Credit Suisse said in a report. "The customer initiates the interaction on WhatsApp, checks out the grocery order on JioMart webpage, gets connected with a retail store on WhatsApp and then customer picks up the order from Kirana and pays in cash," it said, adding the model is likely on delivery and completion of the transaction on one app. Read More

Facebook on Wednesday announced investment of Rs 43,574 crore to pick a 9.9 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Limited's wholly-owned subsidiary, Jio Platforms, in what is being touted as the largest foreign direct investment for minority stake in India. The company said, "Today we are announcing a $5.7 billion, or INR 43,574 crore, investment in Jio Platforms Limited, part of Reliance Industries Limited, making Facebook its largest minority shareholder." “Reliance Industries Limited, Jio Platforms Limited and and Facebook today announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of Rs 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms,” Reliance Industries said in its statement. Read More

Mukesh Ambani -led Reliance Industries (RIL) on Monday said it was consolidating its media and distribution business spread across multiple entities into Network18 . This will pave the way for a Rs 8,000-crore company, second only to Star India, now acquired by Disney, which remains the largest media company in the country with revenue of Rs 12,341 crore (in 2018-19). Under the scheme of arrangement, TV18 Broadcast, Hathway Cable & Datacom, and DEN Networks would merge into Network18, RIL said, with the appointed date for the merger being February 1. The scheme will also simplify the corporate structure of the group by reducing the number of listed companies. RIL’s stake in Network18 would reduce to 64 per cent, from 75 per cent, following the merger. While the broadcasting business, RIL said, would be housed in Network18, the cable and distribution business would sit in two separate wholly owned subsidiaries of Network18. Read More

Well, the website of JioMart with the tagline " India ki nayi dukaan " is a a new grocery shopping experience from Reliance Industries Limited, the country's most valued firm. This in turn is expected to take on online grocery specialists- Bigbasket and Grofers, as well as global e-commerce giants Amazon and Walmart. The JioMart app can be soon soon downloaded on apple and android platforms. Currently web services of JioMart are available in the outskirts of Mumbai, in suburbs such as Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan. And this will be scaled up nationally soon. The app will not only connect consumers, but also enable kiranas to order at wholesale rates from Reliance’s cash-and-carry stores, Reliance Market, to refill their stocks. At present, the web portal is offering pre- registration discounts of Rs 3000, claims to have 50,000 plus grocery products with free home delivery and no minimum order value, no-questions-asked return policy and an express delivery p...

A stock swap offer to help shareholders of billionaire Mukesh Ambani ’s unlisted retail business monetize their investment has valued the unit at $34 billion. Share owners in Reliance Retail Ltd . can exchange four shares for one of its listed parent Reliance Industries Ltd., according to a so-called scheme of arrangement posted on the group’s website. With the parent’s latest market capitalization at 9.8 trillion rupees ($137 billion), the share swap values the subsidiary at 2.4 trillion rupees, according to Bloomberg’s calculation. Asia’s richest man is scouting for investors for the profitable retail unit. The share swap, which will help Reliance Retail employees monetize their illiquid stock options, values the company at more than Tesco Plc, the U.K.’s biggest supermarket chain. Ambani has promised to slash the group’s net debt zero to zero by March 2021 after an investment spree of $76 billion in the past five years, bulk of it on its massively disruptive telecom carrie...

Sony Corp . is in talks to acquire a stake in the Indian television network controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, as the Japanese giant seeks to tap booming demand for content in the South Asian nation, according to people familiar with the matter. The Tokyo-based company is currently conducting due diligence on Ambani’s Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. before any possible offer, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. Sony is considering several potential deal structures, including a bid for the company or a merger of its own Indian business with Network18’s entertainment channels, one of the people said. Talks are at a preliminary stage and may not result in a transaction, the people said. Shares of Network18 surged as much as 15% in Mumbai on Thursday, while unit TV18 Broadcast Ltd. jumped 9.7%. While a successful deal may help Sony bolster its local offerings and take on upstart rivals such as Netflix Inc., it will give Ambani...

Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani has bagged the top spot in Forbes ' list of the richest Indians for the year 2019 in what the American business magazine said was 'a challenging year' for the Indian economy. This is the 12th time in a row that Ambani -- whose wealth swelled to $51.4 billion this year -- has topped the list. "He added $4.1 billion to his net worth as Jio, the three-year-old telecom unit of his Reliance Industries, became one of India’s biggest mobile carriers with 340 million subscribers," Forbes said. The effect of a slowing economy was visible on the list. Overall, the total wealth of tycoons on the 2019 Forbes India Rich List shrank 8 per cent to $452 billion from a year ago and more than half of India’s 100 richest saw a decline in their net worth, the magazine said. Despite this, some tycoons saw big gains to their fortunes. One of them is infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani, who jumped eight spots to no.2 this year...

Three years after elbowing into the Indian wireless phone market with free calls and data, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is back at it. This time, Asia's richest man is handing out TVs to hook users on movies and entertainment shows via internet. The tycoon is wedging into a business teeming with players from rival mobile carriers to Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc. Ambani's JioFiber broadband service , scheduled to start Thursday across India, comes with a high-definition television and set-top boxes at no charge for annual lifetime subscribers. The offer by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, the tycoon's wireless powerhouse, includes subscriptions to most premium streaming services with prices starting from Rs 700 (about $10) a month. The fiber-TV salvo comes days after Jio formally swept into the No. 1 spot for wireless services after free calls and cheap data lured hundreds of millions of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd struggling under...

Telecom operator Reliance Jio is slated to launch optic fibre-based Jio Fibre broadband service today. At the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) last month, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani announced that JioFibre customers would get free voice calls for life from landline, 100 megabit (mbps) to 1 gigabit per second broadband speed for subscription starting Rs 700 a month and a free HD TV set on commitment to an annual plan. Jio is targeting 35 million subscribers within the first year of commercially operationalising the broadband business. Officials told PTI the company would target 1,600 towns from the first day of the launch and would initially try to reach out to the rest of the country through 30,000 local cable operators who are aligned to three multi-system operators acquired by it recently. Jio Fiber plans Though the company is yet to unviel official plan details, Reliance Jio has made it clear that the plans will range fro...

Among Mumbai’s glitziest society events over the past year were two weddings in the family of Mukesh Ambani , the tycoon who in 2018 became Asia’s richest person. In December, his 27-year-old daughter Isha got married in a Bollywood-style extravaganza attended by global power brokers and titans of finance. Beyonce sang at the festivities, Hillary Clinton flew in and KKR & Co.’s Henry Kravis made an appearance. In March, her twin brother Akash wed in a ceremony attended by the likes of Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai. The lavish events put Ambani’s eldest children in a very public spotlight at a time when they are playing more visible roles at his Reliance Industries Ltd.’s retail and telecommunications businesses. Ambani, 62, has big ambitions in new areas like e-commerce and is enlisting his children to help drive the modernization of his empire. The rise of the twins offers early signs of the efforts the titan is making to groom his heirs. The billionaire ...

Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Monday said the company's retail arm will soon unveil Reliance New Commerce, an initiative to digitally connect kirana stores across the country. Speaking to shareholders at RIL's 42nd Annual General Meeting, Ambani said that the trials of Reliance Retail's digital commerce venture have delivered positive results. "This user-friendly digital platform is designed for inventory management, customer relationship management, financial services and other services," he added. According to the RIL Chairman, the initiative is aimed at digitally empowering kirana stores, including those in smaller towns. "Reliance Retail has brought a retail revolution in India," he said, adding that 'new commerce' is meant to revolutionise India's three crore kirana stores. The purpose of 'new commerce' is to transform unorganised retail into organised retail. New commerce is a $700-billion...

After racking up $59 billion of net debt to survive a brutal war in the world’s second-biggest phone-services market, some of India’s billionaires are bracing for more as their next battle looms: 5G. India seeks to raise $84 billion this year from a sale of airwaves -- most of it for the latest technology tipped to revolutionize connectivity -- posing a conundrum for the carriers controlled by tycoons including Mukesh Ambani , Asia’s wealthiest man. Investment would mean more borrowings, but the reward could be revenue streams never seen before. Operators may soon decide how much more pain they can endure for a high-speed wireless network that can offer better user experience in streaming, gaming and entertainment in a market where Netflix Inc. to Amazon.com Inc. are making inroads. With applications ranging from manufacturing to education and health care, 5G could be the catalyst for India’s digital economy that has the potential to reach $1 trillion by 2025, according to a r...

here were fireworks and an aerial act at the glitzy celebration night in Mumbai on Sunday for newly-weds Akash Ambani and Shloka Mehta . Akash, son of Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani , and Shloka, youngest daughter of diamond merchant Russell Mehta, beamed with joy as they posed for shutterbugs against a heavily decorated floral backdrop. While Akash looked smart in a black kurta with a long embellished jacket, Shloka wore a golden ensemble. The wedding was a star-studded affair as B-Town A-listers and other renowned celebrities from the cricketing and political world celebrated with the Ambanis. Bollywood power couple Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan arrived at the Jio Gardens in their all-white co-ordinated outfits. Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan pose for photos as they arrive for the wedding ceremony of industrialist Mukesh Ambani's son Akash Ambani with Shloka Mehta, in Mumbai, Saturday, March 9, 2019. Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar ar...

With a networth of $54 billion, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has broken into the global top 10 richest billionaire list complied by Hurun Research. "The only Asian in the Top 10, Ambani's wealth is based on telecom, retail and energy, and bucked the poor stock market trend in India last year," Hurun Research said in a statement. The Hurun Global Rich List 2019 is topped by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for the second year in a row, while the senior Ambani is placed 10th with a network of Rs 3.83 trillion, thanks to a rally in RIL shares, which had topped the Rs 8-lakh-crore-mark last month. Ambani owns almost 52 percent in Reliance. Anil Ambani, held in contempt of court by the Supreme Court last week for not paying up Ericsson Rs 540 crore, has lost over $5 billion, from $7 billion seven years ago to $1.9 billion this year, even though both the brothers got off with more or less same amount of inherited wealth. "Having started off similarly a...

Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said it is a major task to ensure that new technologies create more employment opportunities compared to the amount of job losses they cause. Speaking at MobiCom 2018 here, he also said that he is optimistic about technological disruption creating more opportunities despite all the apprehension. A major task is "to ensure that new and disruptive technologies create more employment opportunities than they take away," Ambani said. Although he expressed optimism regarding employment opportunities, he said there is apprehension in the society regarding the same and these apprehensions may delay the process of digital transformation. "These very apprehensions could resist or delay digital transformation of our societies. That would be a mistake," he noted. Ambani emphasised that governments, businesses and civil society organisations should put together an ecosystem for massive upskillin...

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said India was set to become a fully 4G country by 2020, with every mobile phone in India equipped with 4G data connectivity. He was speaking at the annual Indian Mobile Congress in New Delhi. "India has moved from 155th rank in mobile broadband penetration to being the number 1 nation in mobile data consumption in the world... in less than two years. This is the fastest transition anywhere in the world from 2G/3G to 4G. By 2020, I believe that India will be a fully 4G country and ready for 5G ahead of others. Every phone in India will be a 4G enabled phone and every customer will have access to 4G connectivity," Ambani said. Here is the full speech of Mukesh Ambani , whose Reliance Jio Infocomm has come up in the past few years as a major disruptor in the telecom data space Business Standard

After catapulting India to being the world's largest mobile data consuming nation, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani Thursday said Jio's fibre-based broadband offering can place the country among the top three nations in fixed broadband from a low rank of 135 currently. He also said India has moved from 155th rank in mobile broadband penetration to being the number one nation in mobile data consumption in the world in less than two years. The country has an unparalleled combination of connectivity with affordability. "This is the fastest transition anywhere in the world from 2G/3G to 4G," he said. "By 2020, I believe that India will be a fully-4G country and ready for 5G ahead of others." By 2020, every phone in India will be a 4G-enabled phone and every customer will have access to 4G connectivity, he said. Jio is committed to "connecting everyone and everything, everywhere, always with the highest quality and the most affordable price,...

Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani has emerged as the richest Indian for the 11th consecutive year with a net worth of $47.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Ambani is also the year's biggest gainer, adding $9.3 billion to his wealth amid the continuing success of his Reliance Jio broadband telco service. As per the 'Forbes India Rich List 2018 ', Wipro Chairman Azim Premji has retained the second spot, adding $2 billion to his wealth at $21 billion; while ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal moved a place ahead to the third slot with a net worth of $18.3 billion, increasing his wealth by $1.8 billion. Mittal is followed by the Hinduja brothers at with a net worth of $18 billion and Pallonji Mistry with $15.7 billion. Other business magnates making the top 10 list are Shiv Nadar ($14.6 billion), Godrej family ($14 billion), Dilip Shanghvi ($12.6 billion), Kumar Birla ($12.5 billion) and Gautam Adani ($11.9 billion). Read Compl...