INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mukesh Ambani outlined the plan at the company's annual shareholders' meeting in Mumbai.Reliance Industries Ltd
plans to take on the likes of Amazon.com Inc
and Walmart Inc.'s Flipkart Online Services Pvt
in retail by creating a platform that combines online and conventional shopping.Billionaire Chairman Mukesh Ambani outlined the plan
Thursday at the company's annual shareholders' meeting in Mumbai
The effort will involve the group's Reliance Retail Ltd
and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd
The latter will also introduce a fiber-based broadband service Aug
15.Global retail powerhouses like Amazon and Walmart have been investing in India's retail industry, where e-commerce sales could more than
double to $72 billion by 2022 from $32.7 billion in 2018, research firm eMarketer estimated
The retail-to-refining conglomerate is looking for growth in e-commerce after spending as much as 2.5 trillion rupees ($36.3 billion) in
setting up mobile and fiber broadband infrastructure, Ambani said.The platform will use augmented reality, holographs and virtual reality to
create an "immersive shopping experience," Ambani said, without giving a timeline or financial targets
The service will be available to small merchants as well, enabling them to "do everything that large enterprises and large ecommerce players
are able to do."Walmart, the world's largest retailer, said in May it will acquire a 77 percent stake in Flipkart Group for $16 billion,
leaving the remainder to Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and other shareholders.Other news from the shareholder meeting:*Jio aims to
introduce fiber broadband in 1,100 cities nationwide* The e-commerce venture will leverage 350 million footfalls in Reliance Retail stores,
215 million Jio subscribers, and the target of 50 million fiber broadband homes and 30 million small merchants*Carrier has introduced
JioPhone2, an upgraded version of the feature phone offered for an initial price of 2,999 rupees
The upgrade allows access to Youtube, Whatsapp and Facebook*Reliance shares fell 2.6 percent to 964.50 rupees in Mumbai*Hathway Cable and
Datacom Ltd., a provider of cable television and broadband services, plunged 15 percent, its biggest decline since 2010, while DEN Networks
dropped 10 percent on expectations Ambani's Jio will intensify competition
The carrier may look to gain fiber broadbSubscribers by offering lower prices and some free services, a strategy that worked for Jio's phone
services.(This story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
