RIL AGM 2020 Highlights: Google to invest Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.7% stake in Jio Platforms; Google, Jio to develop an Android OS for affordable smartphones

Reliance AGM 2020: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries today announced a partnership with Google under which the internet giant will invest Rs 33,737 cr for a 7.7% stake in Jio Platforms. The company also announced launches of Jio Glass and Jio TV Plus among others during its 43rd Annual General Meet (Meeting)

Reliance Industries hosted its 43rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) today virtually.

The event was hosted through video conferencing and other audio-visual means. The virtual event started at 2 pm was addressed by RIL Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Mukesh Ambani.

Highlights of the AGM

1. Reliance Jio's JioMeet – a cloud video conferencing platform - has been downloaded by over 5 million users so far. The Annual General Meet 2020 is being hosted via JioMeet. The platform was launched in the country last month to take on the likes of Zoom, Google Meet and more.
2. RIL has had another year of record performance. Reliance became the first Indian company of m-cap of $150 billion.
3. While introducing the entities that recently invested in Jio Platforms Ambani welcomed his partners namely Facebook, Silverlake, Vista, Silverlake, KKR, TPG, Adia and Mubadala of UAE, Intel and Qualcomm, among others at AGM 2020 event
4. Google will invest Rs 33,737 crore for 7.7 per cent stake in Jio Platforms.
5. Reliance is now a zero net-debt company and we fulfilled the promise of being net debt-free well before its schedule of March 31, 2021, says Ambani.
6. Consumer business continued to deliver EBITDA growth of 49 per cent this year. Consumer business contributed 35 per cent of EBIDTA. Consumer and tech business has rapidly achieved scale by their exponential growth. Our consumer and technology business has rapidly gained scale," says RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani.
7. Ambani said, RIL has completed India's largest-ever rights issue, which was over-subscribed 1.59 times. RILs rights issue was completed entirely on a digital platform during the lockdown period. RIL has raised Rs 2,12,809 crore through a rights issue, combined investments in Jio Platforms and investment by BP. It is in excess of our Net Debt of Rs 1,61,035 crore at the end of FY19-20.
8. Jio has developed a complete world-class 5G solution from scratch. It will help the company to launch 5G services in India. The trails will start soon and field deployment can happen next year. Ambani said, the 5G product will be available for trails as soon as spectrum is available.
9. Akash Ambani who also joined the AGM along with his sister Isha Ambani announced the launch of JioTV at the AGM. It is a content aggregator that delivers TV channels, shows and movies and much more from various apps and services. Jio TV Plus feature aggregated content from over 12 leading global OTT players such as Zee5, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Hotstar, Voot, SonyLiv, JioCinema, JioSaavn, YouTube and many others. Through the Jio App Store on the Set-Top Box, one will be able to can access internet applications across multiple genres such as entertainment, education, health, cooking, yoga, gaming, religion, and more. Ambani said, "Through Jio Developers program, any app developer can develop, launch and monetize their apps. Developers who wish to partner with Jio can visit http://developer.jio.com for details."
10. Akash also announced the launch of Jio's latest innovation, Jio Glass.
11. Kiran Thomas at #RILAGM said, Jio Glass is a cutting edge technology which provided the best-in-class Mixed Reality services to give users a truly meaningful immersive experience. Jio Glass is making teachers and students come together in 3D virtual rooms and conduct holographic classes through Jio Mixed Reality cloud in real-time. With JioGlass, the traditional way of learning Geography will now be History".
12. Isha Ambani at the AGM said the JioMart that was launched a few months ago in beta in 200 cities is built upon two fundamental pillars and they are (i) A powerful omnichannel tech-platform to unite customers, kiranas and producers and (ii) A widespread physical network of Reliance Retail that takes benefits of new commerce to every corner. It has been built to digitally enable, empower and engage kirana stores. Kiranas' will stay connected and transact with their customers on the JioMart platform, facilitated by a multifunctional POS.
13. Mukesh Ambani said, 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. He added, 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.
14. Talking about Reliance's Retail Business Mukesh Ambani said, Reliance Retail is India's largest and most profitable retail business. Four things give me huge satisfaction and they are (i) more than two-thirds of our nearly 12,000 stores are operated in Tier-II, Tier-III and Tier-IV towns, (ii) The deep-rooted bind with tens of thousands of farmers has helped us in sourcing over 80 per cent of our fresh fruits and vegetables directly from farmers, (iii) We continue to provide large employment and development opportunities for lakhs of people across India and (iv) Our growth model is based on partnership with small merchants and shopkeepers.
15. Talking about the energy and material business Mukesh Ambani said all of our manufacturing facilities continue to operate with 90 per cent capacity despite all challenges amid Coronavirus lockdown. Global companies have approached us for strategic partnerships with the petrochemicals business. Potential partnerships will help build competitive manufacturing capabilities.
16. Adding to it, he said, the deal with Saudi Aramco has not progressed as per the earlier timeline due to the unforeseen circumstances and COVID-19. We are committed to a long-term partnership with Saudi Aramco. He said, the energy industry must understand that fossil fuels and renewable are not mutually exclusive and the world needs to access to clean and affordable energy. For the purpose, a planet-friendly model should be adopted by the energy industry. We are committed to converting CO2 emissions into high-value products. We are targeting to become net carbon-neutral by 2035.
17. Mukesh Ambani said, we will approach the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) with our proposal to spin-off our oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business into a separate subsidiary.
18. Nita Ambani, Reliance Foundation chairperson and founder who joined the AGM said, I assure to you that as soon as a vaccine against COVID-19 is available, we will use our digital infrastructure and supply chain to ensure it reaches every corner of the country.

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