Winning, Indeed, Is A Habit
Mukesh ambani, the wealthiest person in the country, who runs the $51-billion oil and gas giant Reliance Industries (RIL), could almost double his net worth in 2017 to Rs 2,78,425 crore from last year’ ss Rs 1,63,104 crore. RIL, the country’s most valued company that sparked a price war in India’s highly competitive telecom market with the launch of 4G phone service Reliance Jio in 2016, saw its market value touching Rs 3,10,900.44 crore in January.
While Jio has already notched up 130 million customers by offering free domestic voice calls, cheap data services and virtually free smartphones, the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group is aiming to play a significantly important role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution in this part of the world with such a large presence in the digital services market.
The opportunities that the group is currently looking at in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain among many others, are huge. It has already decided to partner with the World Economic Forum (WEF) in establishing an India Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), along with the government of India.
The C4IR in India, which will be established in Mumbai, will operate as the sister centre to the World Economic Forum’s first C4IR in San Francisco. This will allow policymakers and thought leaders in India to stay ahead of the curve through unique insights in new forms of governance and new technology applications, and connections with cutting-edge technology innovators globally.
RIL — the first private sector company from India to feature in Fortune’s Global 500 list of ‘World’s Largest Corporations’ — is currently ranked 203rd in terms of revenues, and 110th in terms of profits. Its business portfolio currently includes hydrocarbon exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and 4G digital services.
