Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Its businesses include energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is the largest public company in India by market capitalisation and revenue, and the 88th largest company worldwide. It is India's largest private tax payer and largest exporter, accounting for 7% of India's total merchandise exports.
The company has attracted controversy for reports of political corruption, cronyism, fraud, financial manipulation, and exploitation of its customers, Indian citizens, and natural resources.
History 1958–1985
Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up in 1958 by Dhirubhai Ambani as a small venture firm trading commodities, especially spices and polyester yarn. In 1965, the partnership ended and Dhirubhai continued the polyester business of the firm. In 1966, Reliance Textiles Industries Pvt. Ltd. was incorporated in Maharashtra. It established a synthetic fabrics mill in the same year at Naroda in Gujarat. On 8 May 1973, it became Reliance Textiles Industries Limited. In 1975, the company expanded its business into textiles, with "Vimal" becoming its major brand in later years. The company held its initial public offering (IPO) in 1977. The issue was over-subscribed by seven times. In 1979, a textiles company Sidhpur Mills was amalgamated with the company. In 1980, the company expanded its polyester yarn business by setting up a Polyester Filament Yarn Plant in Patalganga, Raigad, Maharashtra with financial and technical collaboration with E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., U.S.
1981–2000 In 1985, the name of the company was changed from Reliance Textiles Industries Ltd. to Reliance Industries Ltd. During 1985 to 1992, the company expanded its installed capacity for producing polyester yarn by over 145,000 tonnes per annum.
The Hazira petrochemical plant was commissioned in 1991–92.
In 1993, Reliance turned to the overseas capital markets for funds through a global depository issue of Reliance Petroleum. In 1996, it became the first private sector company in India to be rated by international credit rating agencies. S&P rated Reliance "BB+, stable outlook, constrained by the sovereign ceiling". Moody's rated "Baa3, Investment grade, constrained by the sovereign ceiling".
In 1995/96, the company entered the telecommunications industry through a joint venture with NYNEX, USA, and promoted Reliance Telecom Private Limited in India.
In 1998, Reliance took over Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited during privatization of public sector enterprises.
In 1998/99, RIL introduced packaged LPG cylinders under the brand name Reliance Gas.
The years 1998–2000 saw the construction of the integrated petrochemical complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, the largest refinery in the world.
2001 onwards In 2001, Reliance Industries Ltd. and Reliance Petroleum Ltd. became India's two largest companies in terms of all major financial parameters. In 2001–02, Reliance Petroleum was merged with Reliance Industries.
In 2002, Reliance announced India's biggest gas discovery (at the Krishna Godavari basin) in nearly three decades and one of the largest gas discoveries in the world during 2002. The in-place volume of natural gas was more than 7 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to about 120 crore (1.2 billion) barrels of crude oil. This was the first-ever discovery by an Indian private sector company.
In 2002–03, RIL purchased a majority stake in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. (IPCL), India's second largest petrochemicals company, from the government of India, RIL took over IPCL's Vadodara Plants and renamed it as Vadodara Manufacturing Division (VMD). IPCL's Nagothane and Dahej manufacturing complexes came under RIL when IPCL was merged with RIL in 2008.
In 2005 and 2006, the company reorganised its business by demerging its investments in power generation and distribution, financial services and telecommunication services into four separate entities.
In 2006, Reliance entered the organised retail market in India with the launch of its retail store format under the brand name of 'Reliance Fresh'. By the end of 2008, Reliance Retail had close to 600 stores across 57 cities in India.
In November 2009, Reliance Industries issued 1:1 bonus shares to its shareholders.
In 2010, Reliance entered the broadband services market with acquisition of Infotel Broadband Services Limited, which was the only successful bidder for pan-India fourth-generation (4G) spectrum auction held by the government of India. In the same year, Reliance and BP announced a partnership in the oil and gas business. BP took a 30 per cent stake in 23 oil and gas production sharing contracts that Reliance operates in India, including the KG-D6 block for $7.2 billion. Reliance also formed a 50:50 joint venture with BP for sourcing and marketing of gas in India.
In 2017, RIL set up a joint venture with Russian Company Sibur for setting up a Butyl rubber plant in Jamnagar, Gujarat, to be operational by 2018.
In 2018, the Commercial Court (England and Wales), hearing a legal case involving Reliance Industries and the Union of India, ruled for the first time that the foreign act of state doctrine applied when issues were being addressed through arbitration, as well as when they are addressed through litigation.Carter, J. and Chalk, E., A reliable decision: foreign act of state doctrine applies in English arbitration, DLA Piper published on 15 July 2018, accessed on 8 July 2025
In August 2019, Reliance added Fynd primarily for its consumer businesses and mobile phone services in the e-commerce space.
In December 2022, Reliance Industries Market cap stood at .
In the field of generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) technology, Reliance Industries Ltd. and The BharatGPT Group announced in February 2024 that they would launch a large language model (LLM), Hanuman's AI system, in March 2024. The model will work in 11 local languages in four major areas: health, governance, financial services and education.
In February 2024, Reliance and The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to merge their streaming and television assets. The deal was closed in November 2024, with the Disney Star joint venture having a reported value of $8.5 billion.
In October 2024, Reliance entered into an agreement with Nvidia to procure Blackwell chips for its planned data centre in Jamnagar.
On 14 August 2026, Reliance Industries and Rolls-Royce announced their strategic intent for a partnership to develop and manufacture an indigenous aero engine for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). A dedicated Aero Gas Turbine Complex will be established in India. The facility will support the programme by serving as a centre of excellence for power and propulsion technology where the design, development, manufacturing, testing, production and through-life support of the programme will be undertaken. This is a parallel proposal to the Safran–GTRE programme.
Shareholding The number of shares of RIL are approx. 644.51 crore (6.44 billion). The promoter group, the Ambani family, holds 50.39% of the total shares whereas the remaining 49.61% shares are held by public shareholders, including FII and corporate bodies. Life Insurance Corporation of India, public sector company, is the largest non-promoter investor in the company, with 6.49% shareholding.
In January 2012, the company announced a buyback program to buy a maximum of 12 crore (120 million) shares for . By the end of January 2013, the company had bought back 4.62 crore (46.2 million) shares for .
Listing The company's equity shares are listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and the BSE Limited. The Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) issued by the company are listed on London Stock Exchange. It has issued approx. 5.6 crore (56 million) GDRs wherein each GDR is equivalent to two equity shares of the company. Approximately 3.46% of its total shares are listed on Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
Its debt securities are listed at the Wholesale Debt Market (WDM) Segment of the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE).
It has received domestic credit ratings of AAA from CRISIL (S&P subsidiary) and Fitch. Moody's and S&P have provided investment grade ratings for international debt of the company, as Baa2 positive outlook (local currency issuer rating) and BBB+ outlook respectively.
On 28 December 2017, RIL announced that it will be acquiring the wireless assets of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications for about ₹23,000 crores.
Operations The company's petrochemical, refining, and oil and gas-related operations form the core of its business; other divisions of the company include cloth, retail, telecommunications, and special economic zone (SEZ) development. +Revenue by segment (2024)SegmentShare of revenueOil to Chemicals53.12%Retail26.68%Digital Services11.05%Others6.77%Oil and Gas2.38% In July 2012, RIL informed that it was going to invest US$1 billion over the next few years in its new aerospace division which will design, develop and manufacture equipment and components, including aircraft, engine, radars, avionics and accessories for military and civilian aircraft, helicopters, unmanned airborne vehicles, and aerostats.
In July 2024, Reliance Industries was granted the approval by United States to resume importing oil from Venezuela.
The company had more than 200 subsidiary companies and more than 15 associate companies as of 2024. In fiscal year 2024, the company generated 65% of its sales in India and 35% outside India.
Financials Year2010Reliance Industries Annual Report 2014 (PDF)20112012201320142015Reliance Industries Annual Report 2015 (PDF)2016Reliance Industries Annual Report 2016 (PDF)2017Reliance Industries Annual Report 2017 (PDF)2018Reliance Industries Annual Report 2018 (PDF)2019Reliance Industries Annual Report 2019 (PDF)2020Reliance Industries Annual Report 2021 (PDF)Revenue (₹ cr)2,00,4002,58,6513,39,7923,71,1194,01,3023,88,4942,96,0913,30,1804,30,7316,25,2126,59,205Profit after tax (₹ cr)16,23620,28620,04021,00321,98423,56627,63029,90134,99339,83744,324Year20212022Reliance Industries Annual Report 2023-24 (PDF)202320242025Revenue (₹ cr)5,39,2387,88,7439,74,86410,00,12210,71,174Profit after tax (₹ cr)53,73966,18473,67079,02081,309
Subsidiaries Jio Platforms
Jio Platforms Limited, essentially a technology company, is a majority-owned subsidiary of RIL. It has a valuation of more than billion on expert view as of October 2022. It is the result of a corporate restructuring announced in October 2019, resulting in all the digital initiatives and the telecommunication assets being housed under this new subsidiary. This new subsidiary holds all the digital business assets including Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, which in turn holds the Jio connectivity business - mobile, broadband and enterprise, and also the other digital assets (Jio Apps, Tech backbone and Investments in other tech entities like Haptic, Hathway and Den Networks among others). In April 2020, RIL announced a strategic investment of by Facebook into Jio Platforms. This investment translated into a 9.99% equity stake, on a fully diluted basis. Further in May 2020, RIL sold roughly 1.15% stake in Jio Platforms for to the American private equity investor, Silver Lake Partners. Intel became the 12th company to invest in Reliance Jio platforms after it invested ₹1,894.50 crore ($250 million), the total investments in Jio platforms is ₹117,588.45 crore so far. On 16 July 2020, Google announced that it will acquire a 7.7% stake in Jio Platforms for . Mukesh Ambani has named his son, Akash Mukesh Ambani as the chairperson of Jio in 2022.
Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail is the retail business wing of the Reliance Industries. In April 2025, it had 19,340 stores in India, across formats.