Okay but laana:
The influence of Realiance
24th July 2021
Reading time ~ 3 minutes
Hi there,
Reliance announced the acquisition of Justdial this week. Although I've never used Justdial, I do remember the random ad with Amitabh Bachchan in it - I guess, good job marketing team?
Anyway,it's probably recency bias, but I feel like I'm hearing about Reliance acquiring a company every other week. We all know that Reliance is a huge company, but here are some charts to show you their reach and influence in everyday life:
*Market cap as on 22nd July 2021
Their business is segmeted into 4 parts:
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Digital Services
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Retail
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Media and Entertainment
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Oil to Chemicals
All 4, individual mammoths. As research for this blog, I was reading through Reliance's Annual Report and Page number 2 mentioned "What is good for India is good for Reliance."
Read that again - it doesn't say, what's good for urban Indians or mid-income consumers or small business owners or the next billion consumers - it says what's good for India. Reliance's target market is literally EVERY Indian at this point, and they've done a pretty good job at that. Take a look:
First, their digital services, synonymous with Jio:
From home you say?
(GIF loading..)
And if you're wondering about their reach in their media and entertainment business, check out what all they own/ have stake in. Succession vibes anyone?
Which leads to some pretty eye-opening numbers:
And if you're into that in-store experience, they have a heavy focus on offline retail as well. Their annual report mentions that they have a registered base of 156 Million Loyal customers.
These numbers are driven by their own ventures, acquisitions as well as partnerships, spanning across the retail pyramid.
Finally, comes their Oil to Chemicals business - I won't go too much into it, except that they plan to go net carbon neutral by 2035, and announced a 75,000 Cr push to clean energy. So you can expect to a see lot more of Reliance in solar to begin with.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that if you invest in mutual funds, there are upwards of 300 funds that currently own shares of Reliance, and if you want to check if yours does, you can do that here. Also, if you invest in debt funds - you might also lend to Reliance - check that out here. Reliance forms 10% of Nifty, so any investment in Nifty index funds or ETFs will mean that you own Reliance as well.
Andd that's it - I hope this helped give some perspective to the massive influence and reach of the company on our everyday lives. Reliance has historically provided good value to shareholders and there's no denying that Jio has changed the digital landscape in India, but as I write this blog, I also can't help but think of the sheer size of the company - the power that they have to dictate terms, lead industry behavior and set trends. What are your thoughts on that?
Reach out to me at rujgupta@laana.club
Sources:
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