, Columnist
Ambani Is Coming for India’s Phones and Wallets
Reliance earnings reflect a twin-track strategy to dominate digital services and retail.
Providing proof of concept of India as an alternative to China.
Photographer: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty
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Things nobody should lose in a taxi — their phone and wallet — are what India’s richest man wants to control. And Mukesh Ambani intends to do it in a market of a billion-plus consumers.
The oil-and-petrochemicals tycoon’s digital services startup requires him to dominate the use of mobile devices, while his retail chain, India’s largest, needs maximum grip on customers’ moneybags. Through the fog of the pandemic, the billionaire’s flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. is showing glimpses of this twin-track strategy.