LIVE Reliance AGM 2020: Jio’s Digital Empire, New Launches, Partnerships And More

The corporate connect of the Indian startup ecosystem is nascent, but when it comes to Reliance, the connect is too close. Reliance’s annual general meeting referred to by some as “Indian budget” has got this moniker because of the breadth of the announcements. Some even refer to the AGM as India’s version of Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

The AGM has much to cheer — Reliance becoming debt-free well before the target and Jio Platforms’ fundraise and more. Similarly, there is a lot of speculation on what may come now — from Google and Microsoft backing to the acquisition of Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail to new financial services to agritech plans.

Being at the centre of India’s broadening startup ecosystem, Jio has also acquired stakes in startups like Haptik, NowFloats, Tesseract, last year. But this year, the company’s acquisitions may come in healthtech, grocery delivery, etc as the pandemic changes business focus altogether.

Beyond the external products and services, Reliance is expected to appraise its investors about Jio Platforms’ revenue scale-up future plans, the roadmap for retail business — JioMart, update on JioFiber, Petrochemical business and more. Further, the company may also have a wider update about its 5G roll-out plans, as Jio had sought the telecom department’s permission to do lab testing of its in-house developed 5G products.

Beyond the game-changing announcements, Reliance is also hosting the AGM online for the first time, and has deployed its in-house product portfolio to smoothen the process — Haptik-developed WhatsApp chatbot to guide investors as well as AGM via JioMeet, its video conferencing solution. JioMeet got trolled on its launch, but with this AGM, it is bound to see massive downloads to fuel its growth — will it be retained or not, will be a different story altogether.

As Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani takes centerstage to begin the AGM, we bring you the Live updates:

3: 28

Reliance’s Future Hyper-Growth Engines

Mukesh Ambani says that Reliance’ future includes three hyper-growth engines— Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail’s New Commerce And Reliance’ O2C. Reliance will enable partnerships with global tech giants, small kiranas and startups to enable Made In India, Made for India and for the world. Ambani says the team will pursue all future growth opportunities across businesses.

“In the years to come, Reliance will create more growth engines for accelerating its diversified growth. Our growth strategy is aimed at meeting the needs of all the 1.3 billion Indians. Especially, the millions of underprivileged people, who are at the Bottom of the Economic and Social Pyramid,” Mukesh Ambani

3: 10 PM

JioBp For Mobility

Ambani said that the company has concluded its JV with BP in its existing fuel retailing business. BP has invested INR 7,629 Cr for its 49% stake in the JV. Reliance has further strengthened relations with Bp, under a new brand for fuel retailing business JioBp, which will leverage combined strengths, it will offer new-age mobility solutions for customers Reliance will look for new technologies to convert CO2 into a recyclable resource. The new energy business will also include investors, strategic partners and startups creating energy conservation solutions.

2:57 PM

JioMart Reaches 250K+ Daily Orders

Ambani said that JioMart is a tech-enabled partnership that will link producers, traders, small merchants, consumer brands and consumers. And will reduce inefficiencies thereby creating more value for everyone in the retail ecosystem. He added that the company is now accelerating launch of JioMart. Reached over 250K+ orders every day on JioMart for grocery in 200 cities.

“In addition to grocery, we will expand JioMart to cover electronics, fashion, pharmaceutical and healthcare in the days ahead. In the coming years, we will cover many more cities, serve many more customers across India, and expand to many
more categories.”

Ambani Said,

• JioMart and WhatsApp will be working closely to create growth opportunities for millions of Indian small merchants and enable customers seamlessly transact with kirana shops
• Facebook and Jio share a strong vision for digitally empowering consumers as well as SMEs and entrepreneurs across India

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2:52 PM

Google + Jio To Launch Affordable Smartphone

• Google and Jio are partnering to build an Operating System that could power a value-engineered, entry-level 4G/5G smartphone. The Jio-Google partnership is determined to make India 2G-mukt, said Ambani. 
• As India is standing at the doorsteps of the 5G era, we should accelerate the migration of 350 million Indians, who currently use a 2G feature phone, to an affordable smartphone, Mukesh Ambani said.

“We believe we can design entry-level 4G… or even 5G smartphone… for a fraction of its current cost. But, to power such a value-engineered smartphone, we also need an equally value-engineered smartphone operating system…and such an operating system must be designed with India in mind.” Mukesh Ambani

2:40 PM

JioMart For Essentials

Ambani says JioMart is built as an omnichannel platform for Kiranas with sellers, buyers and wholesalers etc. JioMart was launched as a beta in 200 cities with daily orders crossing 2.5 lakh orders. The company said Kiranas are converted into self-service stores in 48 hours.

As per a 2019 survey by Yes Bank which covered 2,700 SMBs around the country, 50% of digitally-enabled SMBs achieved benefits such as an increase in profitability.

2:38 PM

Jio HealthHub Launched

The company has now launched a comprehensive healthcare platform to enable tests at home, teleconsultation, store and share health records etc. The company says it is committed to digital healthcare in a strong way, byu enabling JioFiber for video calls enabled with JioMeet and end-to-end healthcare services by Jio HealthHub.

With JioMeet, HealthHub has delivered more than 1500+ consultations in four weeks.

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2:35 PM

“Jio’s education platform, Embibe, will address the shortage of quality teachers in India. It is built on three foundational blocks: Unprecedented Personalisation, Incredible Content and Teacher Empowerment,” Isha Ambani

2:33 PM

Jio Glass Launched

Jio Glass can be connected to the phone. The product weighs 75 g and offers mixed reality services and has a personalized audio platform. Jio Glass already supports 25+ applications. 

A similar product (in 2013) by Google (Google glass) was priced at $1,500. In addition to premium price, the product was poised ahead of time and lacked application support and development.

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2:27 PM

Jio TV+ Launched

Akash Ambani breaks down the growth of Jio Fiber and says that the company has now launched Jio TV+, with 12 OTT players including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar etc. The company has also introduced Single click login, voice search, interactivity on TV channels etc.

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Jio’s 22 Startup Partners

Ambani shared that Jio Platforms, along with its over 20 startup partners, has built significant world-class capabilities in several cutting-edge technologies like 4G and 5G technologies, cloud computing, devices and operating systems, Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Blockchain, Natural Language Understanding, Computer Vision etc.

2:22 PM

Jio Launches 5G Solution Under ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’

Ambani said that Reliance is proud to launch 5G solution, which has been Made-in-India from scratch and will enable the company to launch a world-class 5G service in India, using 100% homegrown technologies and solutions.

“JIO has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. This will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India… using 100% home grown technologies and solutions. This Made-in-India 5G solution will be ready for trials as soon as 5G spectrum is available… and can be ready for field deployment next year.”

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2:19 PM

Jio’s Accelerators Of Digital Connectivity

Ambani said, “I can say with pride, that during these past months… JIO has become the digital lifeline for Indians. Despite the huge surge in data traffic, JIO’s network has held firm…and we continue to deliver on our promise of being an essential service provider to the nation.”

He noted that Jio has now launched its five pillars of digital connectivity under which its mobile broadband-enabled 500 Cr GB last month and over 1Mn+ homes are using JioFiber. It also offers Enterprise broadband, Broadband for SME and Narrowband IoT.

“In the next three years, I can see a strong path for Jio to connect over a half a billion mobile customers; over a billion smart sensors; and over 50 million homes and business establishments”- Mukesh Ambani.

2:10 PM

Google Invests In Jio Platforms

Today signed binding agreements with Google International LLC pursuant to which Google would invest INR 33,737 crore for a 7.73% equity stake in Jio Platforms Limited on a fully-diluted basis. Google is investing at an equity valuation of INR 4.36 lakh crore. With this investment by Google, strategic and financial investors have committed a total of INR 152,056 Cr in the last few months.

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2:05 PM

“We became first Indian company to cross $150 Bn market capitalization. Reliance is also the first Indian company to cross INR 1 Lakh Cr in consolidated EBITDA” Mukesh Ambani.

2:00 PM

“JioMeet, since its release a few days ago has already been downloaded by more than 5 Mn users,” Mukesh Ambani.