Business
Ambani lists big-ticket plans for Reliance Industries
Mumbai, June 12
Reliance Industries chairman
Mukesh Ambani on Friday listed the specifics of some big-ticket
investments worth Rs.200,000 crore ($33 billion), spanning refining to
retail, and said 4G services will roll-out from December under "Jio"
brand with devices from Rs.4,000.
"We are nearing the realisation
of our largest investment programme in our history of Rs.100,000
crore," Ambani told the company's 41st annual general meeting here,
adding half of that will be in refining and petrochem business and the
other half under the digital India platform.
He said these
initiatives, in refining, petrochem, oil and gas exploration, broadband
and retail will fructify over the next 12-18 months. But the bulk of his
address was devoted to Reliance Jio -- the group's latest initiative on
digital India.
"In our digital business, our plan is to provide
the same power of computing, communication and information to every
individual, whether in towns or rural areas, which the US president had
10-15 years ago," he said.
"All this at about Rs.300 to Rs.500 per month."
The
chairman said the Relianc team was currently on pre-launch testing and
stabilisation phase of this large and complex network and that
soft-launch had been planed over the next few months with around million
customers.
"This beta programme will be upgraded into commercial
operations around December of this year," he said, adding that the
company now has end-to-end initial capacity to serve over 100 million
broadband and 20 million fibre-to-home customers for the Jio platform.
On devices, the chairman said the focus has been on affordable, yet innovative smartphones.
"Jio
and Reliance Digital teams have worked with all leading device
manufacturers of the world to ensure availability of VoLTE
(Voice-over-long-term evolution) 4G smartphones across all price points
-- from ultra-premium models on one hand, to entry level models on the
other," he said.
"The combination of Jio's strong initiatives and
a supportive global environment, gives me the confidence that we will
see VoLTE phones in India at prices below Rs.4,000 by December of this
year," Ambani said.
The company will also offer a host of other
apps and services like Jio Chat app that has garnered over one million
active users in three months. Other offerings include switch-and-walk
app, Jio Drive (cloud app), Jio play, Jio beats, Jio mags, Jio news and
Jio money.
While the switch-and-walk app will allow customers to
seamlessly copy everything from their old phone to a new phone, the Jio
drive will enable cloud capabilities. Jio beats, Jio mags and Jio news,
as their names suggest, would be digital services offering for content
dissemination.
Earlier in his address, Ambani sought an early
revision of gas prices and urged the government to quickly resolve what
he termed as "legacy issues" over its production-sharing contracts for
discovered hydrocarbon.
Reliance, he said, was a pioneer in
deep-water production of oil and gas and that the company was trying
hard to raise output from the challenging areas in the Krishna-Godavari
basin. But returns were below the cost of capital.
"We are
constructively engaged with the government to resolve legacy issues in a
timely manner with regard to our rights to cost recovery, gas pricing
and other issues to create value for the nation and our shareholders."
He
also told the 41st annual general meeting at the Birla Matoshree
Auditorium here that: "We are hopeful that the government will address
this policy issue in the larger interest of attracting investments in
the critical E&P business."