A new Reliance

The focus on consumer-facing businesses has come at a cost

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is going through an interesting transformation, with the new businesses of telecom and retail accounting for a quarter of the company’s consolidated revenue. If other businesses such as media are included, the energy business would be a little under 70 per cent. The numbers of the new businesses are not small — retail and Jio brought Rs 1.77 trillion in revenue in FY19. Jio caused a disruption in the telecom market and became the third-largest telco with 300 million subscribers at the end of March 2019. Five years ago, retail, despite being the country’s largest, was