Reliance to Create Hybrid Online-to-Offline Retail Platform: Mukesh Ambani

Reliance Industries' (RIL) Chairman & Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani on Thursday said the company saw its biggest growth opportunity "in creating a hybrid, online-to-offline new commerce platform".

According to Ambani, who was addressing the shareholders at the company's 41st Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Mumbai, the new commerce platform will be created through integration of its offline retail arm and online technology platform.

He further said Reliance Retail's revenue grew by 100 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis Rs. 69,000 crores last year.

There were several other major announcements made at the AGM, related to Reliance Jio. The biggest announcement was the launch of Jio GigaFiber, the new name for the Jio Fiber service that has been in testing for a while. The service will be commercially launched this year, and interested consumers can register their interest from August 15. The rollout will be prioritised per area based on the interest shown during the registration process.

Separately, RIL also announced a new Jio Phone model - the Jio Phone 2. Apart from featuring a QWERTY keypad, the smartphone is otherwise quite similar to the original Jio Phone. It will be made available from August 15, priced at Rs. 2,999. Alongside, the company announced the Jio Phone Monsoon Hungama Offer, where users will be able to exchange their older feature phones for a Jio Phone for Rs. 501. The move can be expected to increase adoption of Jio's feature phone lineup.

At the event, RIL detailed that Reliance Jio had grown significantly since its launch 22 months ago, and that it now has 215 million subscribers.

Written with inputs from IANS