Reliance AGM: From 5G smartphones to Aramco deal and more, what to expect tomorrow?

Investors, industry alike are looking forward to big bang announcements on Thursday

ITDC INDIA EPRESS/ITDC NEWS R The annual shareholder meetings of Reliance Industries have always been grand affairs. There was a time when the AGMs used to be held in a stadium in Mumbai and the founder, Dhirubhai Ambani, used to take the podium in the centre. Over the years, the meetings moved to an auditorium, but the aura around them and investors’ enthusiasm to attend them remained the same. The auditorium’s are jam-packed and every major announcement by Mukesh Ambani is welcomed with a thunderous applause. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this will be the second year that the AGM is held virtually. But there should be no dearth of big announcements.

In the last few years, the AGM has been the centre stage for major announcements. In 2017, the Jio feature phone was announced at effectively Rs zero. The Jio Phone 2 followed in 2018. Its entry into high-speed fiber internet through Jio GigaFiber was also announced that year. In 2019, apart from announcing the launch of GigaFiber and detailing the various plans, the highlight was the plan to sell a 20 per cent stake in RIL’s oil-to-chemical business to Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. Last year, Google’s announcement to invest Rs 33,737 crore to pick up 7.7 per cent stake in Jio Platforms took the centre stage.

Investors will surely be looking forward to more big bang announcements in the AGM on Thursday afternoon. While there will always be something new to look forward to, investors will be keen to get updates on some of the earlier announcements as well.

Inexpensive 5G smartphone

Last year, as a part of the investment from Google in Jio Platforms, the two also entered into a commercial agreement to jointly develop an entry level affordable smartphone with optimisations to the Android operating system and the Play Store

“I am excited that our joint collaboration will focus on increasing access for hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t currently own a smartphone while improving the mobile experience for all,” Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, had said then.

India’s entry-level and budget smartphone market is dominated by Chinese companies such as Xiaomi, Realme, apart from Korea’s Samsung. An affordable 5G smartphone by the Jio-Google partnership could well shake up this market. The expectation is that the affordable 5G phone will be unveiled on Thursday. The market is also keenly watching out for the pricing of the phone and Jio tariff plans.