Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), headed by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, has emerged the biggest company by revenue, toppling state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

RIL was already the leader in terms of profits, assets and market capitalisation for some time now.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate recorded a turnover of ₹6.23-lakh crore for the financial year ended March 31, compared with ₹6.17-lakh crore posted by IOC. For the reporting period, RIL was also the most profitable Indian company with a net profit of ₹39,588 crore.

On the other hand, IOC posted yearly net profit of ₹16,894.1 crore.

The profitable business

“The consumer-facing verticals of RIL – telecom company Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio) and Reliance Retail – have been bringing in more revenues than petrochemicals and polymer have. This is an important development as these are new segments and they have become profitable as well,” Deven Choksey, Managing Director at KR Choksey Investment Managers, told BusinessLine .

“RIL had expanded capacity in polymer and petrochemicals; the larger growth in revenue from retail and telecom suggests that the company is growing faster in the consumer-facing business, rather than in the core businesses,” Choksey added.

RIL’s revenue growth for FY19 was led by retail and digital services businesses, which grew by 51.6 per cent and 61.6 per cent, respectively, and higher petrochemical volumes. For the reporting period, RJio posted a net profit of ₹2,964 crore, against ₹723 crore in the previous year.

“RIL’s business model is robust, especially retail and RJio, which has pushed the company into a market leader’s position, and we expect it to retain this position for the next couple of fiscal years. Growth will come from RJio, with the telecom player expected to unfold further business avenues,” Kishor Ostwal, Chairman and Managing Director at CNI Research said.

RIL closed up 1.08 per cent at ₹1,339.75 on the BSE, with a market capitalisation of ₹8.50-lakh crore.

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