RIL's market cap breaches Rs 7-trillion mark for the first time

RIL touched a fresh record high of Rs 1,107 on BSE which is up by 2.5% from its previous close with a market cap of Rs 7.01 trillion at 09.52 am; the BSE data shows.

Reliance Industries (RIL) crossed Rs 7 trillion market capitalisation (market cap) mark for the first time on Friday and became second Indian firm to cross this mark after information technology giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The stock touched a fresh record high of Rs 1,107 on BSE, up by 2.5% from its previous close with a market cap rising to Rs 7.01 trillion at 09.52 am; the BSE data shows. TCS is at top of the rank with Rs 7.55 trillion market cap, the BSE data shows.

In past six trading sessions, RIL rallied 15%, gaining Rs 901 billion market-cap, after Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director in the Annual General Body Meeting (AGM) held on July 5, 2018 launched ultra high speed fixed line broadband services for homes and enterprises under the brand of JioGigaFiber. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 3.2% during the same period.

“RIL expects this to be a large scale launch (trials are ongoing across multiple cities) and overall it is likely to be a bundled offering, across broadband and set top box for television. There are no details yet on pricing, though in our view given Jio’s customer acquisition strategy, launch pricing should effectively be at a large discount to current broadband and set top box pricing prevalent. Jio expects to launch the Jio GigaFiber across 1100 cities. The Chairman did mention that the targeted base for Jio GIGA Homes is 50 million,” analysts at JP Morgan said in recent report.

Holders of RIL increasingly see JIO as a complete digital ecosystem play v/s the current revenue stream of telecom and the revenue pressure. We estimate net debt of RIL at consolidated level stood at Rs 2.55 trillion and in our view at the consolidated level, material FCF is likely only from FY20 onwards, it added. However, the stock was trading above 12 month target price of Rs 1,050 per share.

At 09:55 am; RIL was trading 2% higher at Rs 1,104 with a market cap of Rs 6.99 trillion on the BSE. On comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.42% at 36,700 points. A combined 5.45 million shares changed hands on the counter on the BSE and NSE so far.