Mukesh Ambani becomes the World’s Fourth Richest
Mukesh Ambani, an Indian business tycoon crossed Europe’s richest person to become the fourth richest person globally. The Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries is now worth $80.6 bilion dollars, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
The billionaire amassed a great wealth of $22 billion dollars just this year, helping him to achieve this feat. He has crossed some of the world’s greatest business tycoons, including the popular Silicon Valley sensation Elon Musk and successful investor Warren Buffett.
“We now value Jio’s non-wireless verticals (health, education, agri-tech, home broadband, enterprise services, Internet of Things (IoT), and Jio’s app suite), given the significant progress in many of them and the possibility of aggressive customer ramp-up enabled by the recent significant deleveraging ($23.7 billion). We assign an enterprise value (EV) of $17.5 billion for non-wireless verticals, increasing Jio’s EV (enterprise value) to $88.5 billion," Credit Suisse said in a report from July 13.
The dip in oil prices did impact the now fourth-richest, however the shares of RIL (Reliance Industries Inc.) have now doubled since March, this year. This has happened as global giants Facebook and Google, along with other companies (such as Qualcomm) have invested billions into Reliance’s digital leg.
Ambani has revealed an ambitious plan for his company in the recent investors’ Annual General Meeting (AGM). They said that they’re ready to offer a 5G service which has been developed in house. Besides that, they’ve also said that they can manufacture low-cost 4G phones which will be an upgrade for its current 2G users. Being the only company that is not dependent on its Chinese counterparts for their equipment is most definitely creating a positive impact on their business, especially since the recent ban.
Reliance’s primary plan was to include small and medium sized businesses like ‘kirana’ stores on the Jio platform. Reliance has its own multiple platforms which offer different services. They’ve recently invested in sectors like Education, Telecom and Gaming. They have also recently launched ‘Work@Home’. This offers work-from-home solutions for businesses that are finding it difficult to adjust to the abnormality that the pandemic has brought in.