New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani today said group companies Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio Infocomm would jointly launch a new e-commerce platform in the country. Gujarat would be the first state to get it, he said in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two were present at the inauguration of the three-day Vibrant Gujarat summit.

The new e-commerce project would empower 1.2 million shopkeepers in Gujarat, Ambani said, adding the company was committed to making the western Indian state a fully digital one.

The company declared its December quarter earnings Thursday and for the first time, its consumer businesses, mostly the telecom and retail operations, contributed one-fourth to the revenues. Petrochemicals contributed 42% and refining almost 26%.

Speaking at RIL’s 41st annual general meeting last year, Ambani had said the company aimed to more than double its revenues by 2025 as contributions from the retail and telecom arms came to match that of the hydrocarbon business.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate posted consolidated revenues of ₹ 430,731 crore in 2017-18 and a profit after tax of ₹ 36,075 crore.

The company’s consolidated net profit of ₹ 10,251 crore for October-December was 7.7% higher than the September quarter. Consolidated revenues came in at ₹ 1,71,336 crore, up 9.6% from the immediately previous quarter.

Ambani said Reliance Foundation, a group entity that undertakes socially relevant projects, would give ₹ 150 crore to the state’s Pandit Deen Dayal Petroleum University to improve its infrastructure.

In strongly worded comments, also his first publically on the subject of data localization, he called upon the government to secure the data of its citizens locally. He said there was a need to “collectively act against data colonization".

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