RIL lists future growth drivers

Mumbai: Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh D Ambani expects digital services and organised retail to contribute "meaningfully" to the private sector's consolidated profits even as both these consumer segments will be on a par with its energy and materials business over the next decade.

RIL's digital services arm, Reliance Jio Infocomm, which disrupted the domestic telecom industry through its cheap tariffs, is now looking to provide enterprise solutions, apart from providing fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and internet of things (IoT) services.

This was disclosed by Ambani in a note to RIL shareholders in its annual report for 2017-18. The year saw RIL posting a consolidated turnover of Rs 4,30,731 crore. Of this, revenues from retail stood at Rs 69,198 crore, while that from digital services came in at Rs 23,916 crore.

According to the RIL chief, the contribution of Jio and retail to its EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) has grown to 13.1 per cent in 2017-18 from a mere two per cent in 2016-17.

"The year saw our consumer businesses attain a threshold, wherefrom they will start contributing meaningfully to the consolidated profits. Our aim is to have the consumer businesses contribute on par with the energy and materials business over the next decade," Ambani added.

Jio had 186.6 million customers at the end of March 2018 and saw a strong subscriber growth during the year, reporting the lowest churn in the industry at 0.25 per cent per month. Each Jio subscriber on an average consumes 9.7GB data, 716 minutes of voice calls and 13.8 hours of video per month, he disclosed.

On its oil and gas business, which has been a source of disappointment, Ambani said volumes from conventional fields and US shale were lower because of a natural decline and slowdown in development activity. While domestic production was lower by almost 17 per cent, the US shale volume also fell around 20 per cent.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)