About Reliance Group

A dream come true

The Late Dhirubhai Ambani dreamt of a digital India — an India where the common man would have access to affordable means of information and communication. Dhirubhai, who single-handedly built India’s largest private sector company virtually from scratch, had stated as early as 1999: “Make the tools of information and communication available to people at an affordable cost. They will overcome the handicaps of illiteracy and lack of mobility.”

It was with this belief in mind that Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocomm) started laying 60,000 route kilometres of a pan-India fibre optic backbone. This backbone was commissioned on 28 December 2002, the auspicious occasion of Dhirubhai’s 70th birthday, though sadly after his unexpected demise on 6 July 2002.

Reliance Communications has a reliable, high-capacity, integrated (both wireless and wireline) and convergent (voice, data and video) digital network. It is capable of delivering a range of services spanning the entire infocomm (information and communication) value chain, including infrastructure and services — for enterprises as well as individuals, applications, and consulting.

Today, Reliance Communications is revolutionising the way India communicates and networks, truly bringing about a new way of life.

About Sh. Dhirubhai Ambani

Few men in history have made as dramatic a contribution to their country’s economic fortunes as did the founder of Reliance, Sh. Dhirubhai H Ambani. Fewer still have left behind a legacy that is more enduring and timeless.

As with all great pioneers, there is more than one unique way of describing the true genius of Dhirubhai: The corporate visionary, the unmatched strategist, the proud patriot, the leader of men, the architect of India’s capital markets, the champion of shareholder interest. But the role Dhirubhai cherished most was perhaps that of India’s greatest wealth creator. In one lifetime, he built, starting from the proverbial scratch, India’s largest private sector enterprise.

When Dhirubhai embarked on his first business venture, he had a seed capital of barely US$ 300 (around Rs 14,000). Over the next three and a half decades, he converted this fledgling enterprise into a Rs 60,000 crore colossus—an achievement which earned Reliance a place on the global Fortune 500 list, the first ever Indian private company to do so.

Dhirubhai is widely regarded as the father of India’s capital markets. In 1977, when Reliance Textile Industries Limited first went public, the Indian stock market was a place patronised by a small club of elite investors which dabbled in a handful of stocks.

Undaunted, Dhirubhai managed to convince a large number of first-time retail investors to participate in the unfolding Reliance story and put their hard-earned money in the Reliance Textile IPO, promising them, in exchange for their trust, substantial return on their investments. It was to be the start of one of great stories of mutual respect and reciprocal gain in the Indian markets.

Under Dhirubhai’s extraordinary vision and leadership, Reliance scripted one of the greatest growth stories in corporate history anywhere in the world, and went on to become India’s largest private sector enterprise.

Through out this amazing journey, Dhirubhai always kept the interests of the ordinary shareholder uppermost in mind, in the process making millionaires out of many of the initial investors in the Reliance stock, and creating one of the world’s largest shareholder families.

The second son of a school teacher, Dhirubhai was born in 1932 in the village of Chorwad in Gujarat in circumstances that can best be described as modest. Driven by hardship and want, he had to drop out of school early.

In 1949, at the age of 17, he went to Aden (now Yemen) in search of opportunity, and worked as a dispatch clerk for A. Besse & Co. A couple of years later, the company became a distributor for Shell products and Dhirubhai was promoted to manage the company’s oil-filling station at the port of Aden. It was here that he dreamed of setting up and owning a refinery, which he later realized with his petrochemicals venture. He returned to India in 1958 to launch his first business venture, a spice trading company named Reliance Commercial Corporation.

In 1962, Dhirubhai identified an emerging opportunity in yarn trading and shifted to the new business. Three years later, he changed the name of his company to Reliance Textile Industries Limited.

In 1966, he purchased land in Naroda, Gujarat, to set up a textile mill. In 1975, a technical team from the World Bank recognised the Naroda mill as one of the best composite textile mills in India and certified it as ‘excellent even by developed country standards’.

In 1977, the company went public. At the time of the Reliance Textiles IPO, participation in the Indian capital markets was largely limited to a small but influential elite which dabbled in a handful of stocks. The great majority of India’s middle class chose to stay away. Dhirubhai’s decision to prefer the capital markets over banks as the primary source of funding for his ambitious expansion plans, was as daring as it was unprecedented. In the event, The Reliance IPO was an unlikely success. Against all odds, Dhirubhai managed to convince a sufficiently large number of sceptical middle class investors to put their money, and faith, in what was then a small, relatively unknown company. The subsequent growth and success of Reliance and its philosophy of generously rewarding shareholders rapidly gave Dhirubhai an iconic status in the Indian financial markets.

Under Dhirubhai’s charismatic leadership, the Annual General Meetings (AGM) of Reliance took on the character of large public spectacles. Typically held in large public arenas, and attended by thousands of adoring shareholders, the Reliance AGM became a day to remember in the annual corporate calendar of India. In 1986, the Reliance AGM held in Cross Maidan, Mumbai, was attended by as many as 30,000 stockholders—a record in India’s corporate history. By the mid-80s, Dhirubhai had become something of a living legend, widely hailed by peers and critics alike as one of the greatest corporate visionaries in the history of post-Independent India. But Dhirubhai was never one to rest on his laurels. In the early 80s, he had taken the first important step in strategic backward integration for Reliance with the commissioning of the Patalganga plant which initially manufactured polyester filament yarn and polyester staple fibre.

In 1991, he set up Reliance Hazira, for the manufacture of petrochemicals—the next link in the backward integration chain. At the time, Reliance Hazira represented the single largest investment made by a private sector group in India at a single location.

Meanwhile, Dhirubhai had firmed up plans of setting up a massive grassroots refinery—the next big leap in his overall strategic roadmap for Reliance. Conceived as the world’s largest grassroots refinery at the time, Jamnagar in Gujarat was to have an annual capacity of 27 million tonnes. In the face of formidable challenges, including a massive cyclone that flattened the project site mid-way through construction, Reliance commissioned the Jamnagar facility in 1999. It was a fully integrated refinery, complete with a dedicated port and a captive supply of power. The refinery was not only commissioned ahead of schedule, but also set up at a cost that was significantly lower than the prevailing global benchmark for a project of such magnitude.

It was one of Dhirubhai’s great dreams in life to see ordinary Indians enjoy the enormous economic benefits of being able to access affordable yet world class telecommunications infrastructure. He wanted Reliance to spearhead a communications revolution that would dramatically cut down the cost of connectivity, and propel India into the digital age. His ultimate ambition: To make the cost of a phone call cheaper than that of a post card. It was therefore entirely logical for Reliance to enter the telecommunications space when the sector was opened up for private participation in the 1990s. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, Reliance Communications is India’s largest information and communications services provider with over 20 million subscribers, and offers the full range of integrated telecom services—at prices that are, by far, the lowest anywhere in the world. Dhirubhai left for his heavenly abode on July 6, 2002.

Vision

“We will leverage our strengths to execute complex global-scale projects to facilitate leading-edge information and communication services affordable to all individual consumers and businesses in India.

We will offer unparalleled value to create customer delight and enhance business productivity.

We will also generate value for our capabilities beyond Indian borders and enable millions of India's knowledge workers to deliver their services globally.”

Business

India ’s leading integrated telecom company

Reliance Communications is the flagship company of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) of companies. Listed on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange, it is India’s leading integrated telecommunication company with over 48 million customers.

Our business encompasses a complete range of telecom services covering mobile and fixed line telephony. It includes broadband, national and international long distance services and data services along with an exhaustive range of value-added services and applications. Our constant endeavour is to achieve customer delight by enhancing the productivity of the enterprises and individuals we serve.

Reliance Mobile (formerly Reliance India Mobile), launched on 28 December 2002, coinciding with the joyous occasion of the late Dhirubhai Ambani’s 70th birthday, was among the initial initiatives of Reliance Communications. It marked the auspicious beginning of Dhirubhai’s dream of ushering in a digital revolution in India. Today, we can proudly claim that we were instrumental in harnessing the true power of information and communication, by bestowing it in the hands of the common man at affordable rates.

We endeavour to further extend our efforts beyond the traditional value chain by developing and deploying complete telecom solutions for the entire spectrum of society.

Reliance Group

Looking back, looking forward

Reliance – Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, an offshoot of the Reliance Group founded by Shri Dhirubhai H Ambani (1932-2002), ranks among India’s top three private sector business houses in terms of net worth. The group has business interests that range from telecommunications (Reliance Communications Limited) to financial services (Reliance Capital Ltd) and the generation and distribution of power (Reliance Energy Ltd).

Reliance – ADA Group’s flagship company, Reliance Communications, is India's largest private sector information and communications company, with over 48 million subscribers. It has established a pan-India, high-capacity, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network, to offer services spanning the entire infocomm value chain.

Other major group companies — Reliance Capital and Reliance Energy — are widely acknowledged as the market leaders in their respective areas of operation.

Reliance Energy Ltd.

Reliance Mutual Fund

Harmony

Reliance Communications

Reliance Life Insurance

Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group

Reliance General Insurance

Reliance Portfolio Management Service