Next wave of RIL growth to come from consumer biz: Ambani

Consumer-oriented businesses are set to become an increasingly important part of Reliance Industries.

At its annual general meeting on Thursday, the company chalked out some ambitious plans for its retail and digital business.

Reliance Industries' chairman Mukesh Ambani said the business conglomerate aims to get one crore people shopping at its stores every week over the next three to four years. Currently, about 30 lakh people shop at its Reliance Retail stores every week.

[caption id="attachment_335378" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Overall, the retail business currently has 1,300 stores across 18 states Reuters"][/caption]

He said currently the company is the largest food retailer in the country. Overall, the retail business currently has 1,300 stores across 18 states. It has also created new employment opportunities for over 50,000 people - "around 25,000 of them are directly employed by us", said Ambani.

"Reliance has always been an integral part of India's growth," he said in his speech. He said that investments in the company's petrochemicals, refinining, organised retail and digital services businesses "would create new waves of growth and value for Reliance."

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Reliance Retail currently generates revenues of Rs 7,600 crore; the aim is to generate Rs 40,000-Rs 50,000 crore over the next three to four years, he said.

"We wish to position Reliance Retail as India's favourite retailer and undisputed market leader with focused business interests," Ambani said. " We are investing aggressively in this business to consolidate and strengthen our leadership position in this sector."

He said Reliance Retail will be "one of the company's important growth engines in the next few years and will have among the highest growth rates and revenues."

The company's digital efforts also found a mention in the chairman's speech. "We are currently finalising our plans to offer services on a nationwide basis and will be happy to report our progress in coming years," he said. " The initiative will be an additional and significant value creator for Reliance and our shareholders."

For its next phase of growth, the company said it would invest across all core businesses in new capacity and margin improvement projects. Along with investments to boost growth in the energy business, "our consumer businesses are going to provide a second dimension to our growth strategy, RIL's chairman said.