Friday, June 04, 2004
NYT profiles Reliance
The New York Times has a pretty exhaustive profile of Reliance Industries, the private sector giant that has once again topped the ET 500 list as the largest private sector company in India. Of course, the downside of Reliance is pretty well-known (uncomfortable proximity to politicians, for instance), but this profile has some interesting statistical tidbits on the company too, especially on the scale of its operations.
Its sales equal 3.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product, more than the combined global sales of all of India's outsourcing companies. Its $3.6 billion worth of exports are 6.1 percent of India's total. It helps fill government coffers, contributing 9.4 percent of India's so-called indirect tax revenues, from things like sales taxes, customs and duties.
The Reliance group - five listed companies and an undisclosed number of unlisted ones, with complex ownership structures and with interests that also include energy distribution, mobile and broadband services, insurance and financial services - reported net profits of $2.8 billion for its fiscal year ended in March. Sales were $22.6 billion, more than Coca-Cola or Halliburton reported for 2003.
Reliance Industries, which accounts for 30 percent of the total profits of India's private sector, runs the world's third-largest refinery, in Jamnagar, in the western state of Gujarat. The $6 billion refinery accounts for around 28 percent of India's refining capacity. Reliance Energy struck the world's largest gas find of 2002, and the country's biggest in three decades, in the Krishna-Godavari basin in eastern India. In January, it announced plans to build the world's biggest gas-fired power plant, in northern India, with a $2.2 billion investment. And when the power distribution systems in India's two biggest cities, New Delhi and Mumbai, were privatized in 2003, Reliance Energy became the largest electricity distributor in both cities.
And of course, the success of Reliance Infocomm I have documented on this blog earlier (becoming the largest mobile company in India a mere 12 months after entering the market).
Its sales equal 3.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product, more than the combined global sales of all of India's outsourcing companies. Its $3.6 billion worth of exports are 6.1 percent of India's total. It helps fill government coffers, contributing 9.4 percent of India's so-called indirect tax revenues, from things like sales taxes, customs and duties.
The Reliance group - five listed companies and an undisclosed number of unlisted ones, with complex ownership structures and with interests that also include energy distribution, mobile and broadband services, insurance and financial services - reported net profits of $2.8 billion for its fiscal year ended in March. Sales were $22.6 billion, more than Coca-Cola or Halliburton reported for 2003.
Reliance Industries, which accounts for 30 percent of the total profits of India's private sector, runs the world's third-largest refinery, in Jamnagar, in the western state of Gujarat. The $6 billion refinery accounts for around 28 percent of India's refining capacity. Reliance Energy struck the world's largest gas find of 2002, and the country's biggest in three decades, in the Krishna-Godavari basin in eastern India. In January, it announced plans to build the world's biggest gas-fired power plant, in northern India, with a $2.2 billion investment. And when the power distribution systems in India's two biggest cities, New Delhi and Mumbai, were privatized in 2003, Reliance Energy became the largest electricity distributor in both cities.
And of course, the success of Reliance Infocomm I have documented on this blog earlier (becoming the largest mobile company in India a mere 12 months after entering the market).
