Mukesh Ambani today addressed the first-ever Virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Reliance Industries. The meeting was conducted through Jio’s own video conferencing platform, JioMeet, had over 3 lakh investors from over 40 countries join Mukesh Ambani has he unveiled RIL’s plans.

He started the meeting talking about Covid-19 and how it has turned out to be the most disruptive event in modern human history. He then shifted the focus to how well Reliance Industries had been doing the past year. Reliance became the first Indian company to exceed market capitalization of $150B, and the first company to cross ₹1,00,000 crore in consolidated EBITDA.

Google invests ₹33,737 crores in Jio Platforms

Apologizing for the fall-out of the Saudi Aramco deal, Mukesh thanked all the other investors for believing in Reliance and Jio Platforms. He announced that RIL had fulfilled the promise of going debt-free well ahead of the timeline, and became India’s largest-ever ₹53,124 crore Rights Issue.

Google joined the extensive list of investors, which picked up a minority stake for ₹33,737 crores (7.7%) in Jio Platforms. Highlighting the investment, Reliance announced that Google and Jio are teaming up to make entry-level 4G smartphones. “A big chunk of India’s population is still stuck on 2G feature phones, and a cheap Android phone will likely be their first choice when they decide to transition out.“

To cater to this transition, Google and Jio will work on a custom Android-based operating system for these smartphones. And, as and when 5G becomes a mainstream thing in India, the duo may even come out with a 5G-enabled entry-level phone.

Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan

Then started the flood of Jio announcements. Starting with Jio TV+, Jio aims to simplify content browsing/finding experience. In simple words, Jio TV+ is a content aggregator that curates all the content from some of the top OTT platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar, and others). Check out our full take on Jio TV+ here.

JioGlass is the first hardware product from the company in the field of AR/VR. Weighing only 75 grams, JioGlass will be the ‘portal’ to Mixed Reality, which will rely on the internet connection of your smartphone. At present, Jio claims to have support for 25+ apps that are holographic in nature, from 3D video calls to simulated office spaces. JioGlass will be available on a large scale, though the company hasn’t provided any timeline on the availability.

Ambani also talked about the shift to 5G. He said that Jio is ready for deployment of 5G network across India, and is waiting for the 5G spectrum to happen. He also added that Jio will start field-tests on the day Jio gets approval from the regulators and their network will be entirely built on homegrown hardware.

Talking about other Jio products, Akash Ambani along with Isha Ambani and Kiran Thomas, announced a new education-app called Embibe that’ll enable students to access lessons right from their Jio Set-top box. The trio also introduced a Jio Healthcare Hub where you’ll be able to book tests, consult doctors, and do much more related to healthcare.

JioMart Expansion

Mukesh Ambani emphasized that JioMart and WhatsApp will work together to create more growth opportunities for Kirana stores in India. JioMart has already expanded to over 200 cities in India, with over 2.5 lakh orders a day, with numbers continuing to grow each day.

It was announced that JioMart has now enabled a multipurpose point of service (POS) services to enable smooth transactions between stores and their customers. Moreover, any Kirana store, willing to become a local JioMart store will be able to transition from a normal Kirana store to a fully functional JioMart store in less than 48 hours. “We will also expand JioMart to include electronics, fashion, pharmaceutical, and healthcare,” he added.

Other AGM Announcements

Towards the end, Mukesh Ambani announced that Reliance is working to build RIL as one of the world’s leading new energy and new materials company. Now ranked among the World’s 60 largest companies by market capitalization, Ambani ensured investors that the New Energy business is a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity for India, and the shareholders will surely reap its rewards.

Lastly, Nita Ambani made her first AGM announcement ensuring that as and when the Covid-19 vaccine’s available, Reliance will closely work the Government of India in making it accessible to everyone.