Reliance Industries said it has applied for the use of niclosamide as a potential drug to treat Covid-19 and developed a cost-effective diagnostic kit to detect the disease, among other measures that leverage its intellectual capital to fight the pandemic. In its annual report for 2020-21 released on Wednesday, RIL said Jio Platforms has tied up with US chipmaker Qualcomm for local manufacturing of 5G equipment.
The company said it had prepaid $7.8 billion of long-term foreign currency debt in the year and become a “net debt zero” company in FY21. In the year, the digital commerce and merchant partnerships business notched up a 10% share in Reliance Retail’s total revenue of Rs 1,53,818 crore, rising from almost nothing in the previous year.
“We now have a strong balance sheet with high liquidity that will support growth plans for our three hyper-growth engines – Jio, Retail and O2C,” chairman Mukesh Ambani said in the report. RIL reported a net profit of Rs 53,739 crore in 2020-21, up 34.8% from the year before, even as revenue declined 18.3% to Rs 539,238 crore. Ambani has not drawn any salary in the year in view of the Covid disruption.
The annual revenue declined as the company’s oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, which accounts for 60% of the top line, witnessed lower volumes and realisation. But flexibility in operations and agile response enabled operations at near-normal levels, the annual report said. The company also sourced the world’s first consignment of ‘carbon-neutral oil’ towards its aim to be net carbon zero by 2035, the annual report said.
COVID INITIATIVES
Niclosamide is a medication used to treat tapeworm, which some studies have shown can help treat Covid. Reliance Industries said its R&D team has designed a process to produce sanitisers to the World Health Organization specifications at 20% of market cost. The company said the team is also working on getting certification for Nexar polymer, which has shown the ability to destroy the lipid layer of various viruses and bacteria.
The company said it is working to address ventilator shortages and also developing oxygen generators capable of producing 5-7 litres of oxygen per minute with a purity of 90-95%. “Reliance developed novel cost-effective diagnostic kits called ‘R-Green’ and ‘R-Green Pro’ for Covid-19 detection. The kits have received ICMR approval,” the annual report noted.
RELIANCE-QUALCOMM TIEUP
Reliance Jio is currently preparing for 5G field trials, having received spectrum for the purpose from the Department of Telecommunications. RIL said Jio Platforms has collaborated with US chipmaker Qualcomm for local manufacturing of “critical equipment” to push the 5G ecosystem in India. Qualcomm had also invested $97 million in Jio Platforms last year for a 0.15% stake.
It added that Jio Platforms is also working with original equipment manufacturers on standardising 5G device configurations. RIL said the “strategic initiatives” to be rolled out by its digital unit Jio in partnership with US majors Facebook and Google will further improve its consumer service offerings. Last year, Facebook and Google bought 9.99% and 7.73% stakes in Jio Platforms for Rs 43,574 crore and Rs 33,737 crore, respectively.
RETAIL AND DIGITAL COMMERCE
Reliance Retail had last year kicked off its digital commerce initiative Jio-Mart in 200 cities, selling grocery items to begin with. It later added fashion and electronics to the platform. Reliance Retail said ecommerce had “significantly stepped up from near zero in the preceding year”.
Reliance Retail hired more than 65,000 employees during the pandemic, out of which more than 53,000 were freshers. Last year, Reliance Retail had completed the “largest fund raise exercise in the sector” by raising Rs 47,265 crore from a bevy of global private equity funds for a 10.09% stake, valuing the company at more than Rs 4.2 lakh crore.
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