For much of Mukesh Ambani’s career, Reliance was synonymous with oil, refining and petrochemicals.
That description no longer tells the whole story.
The company Ambani leads today operates across digital connectivity, retail, media, consumer brands and financial services, while continuing to run one of the world’s largest refining and petrochemical complexes. Reliance is now investing heavily in new energy, artificial intelligence, digital services and consumer businesses as the next generation of the Ambani family takes on larger responsibilities.
The scale of that transformation also helps explain why Mukesh Ambani remains one of India’s most prominent business figures. According to the Hurun India Rich List 2026, Ambani and his family were valued at ₹8.63 lakh crore, placing them second behind Gautam Adani. Their estimated wealth stood at ₹9.55 lakh crore in 2025.
The bigger story, however, is how Reliance changed under Ambani.
From textiles to a global energy business
Mukesh Ambani joined Reliance in 1981 after studying chemical engineering at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai and pursuing an MBA at Stanford University. He had been on the company’s board since 1977.
His early work focused on expanding Reliance’s manufacturing operations. The company moved from textiles into polyester fibres, petrochemicals, petroleum refining and eventually oil and gas exploration.
One of Ambani’s most significant early infrastructure projects was the development of the Jamnagar refinery complex in Gujarat.
The first refinery, commissioned in the late 1990s, had a capacity of 660,000 barrels a day. A second refinery later added another 580,000 barrels a day. Together, the facilities give Jamnagar an aggregate refining capacity of about 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day.
The complex did more than establish Reliance as a major energy company. It brought refining, petrochemicals, power, port infrastructure and related manufacturing together in one industrial ecosystem.
That integrated approach would later become a recurring feature of Ambani’s strategy.
Jio changed Reliance’s growth story
Reliance’s biggest transformation began with telecommunications.
Reliance Jio commercially launched in September 2016 with a nationwide 4G network, low-cost data and simplified tariffs. The investment was enormous, but Ambani’s objective extended beyond building another telecom operator.
Jio was designed as a broader digital ecosystem connecting telecommunications, devices, applications, entertainment and eventually financial and enterprise services.
The scale of the business today is a sharp contrast with Reliance’s earlier identity as an energy-led company.
By the end of FY2025-26, Jio had more than 524 million subscribers, including 268 million users on its True5G network. Jio Platforms generated ₹1,46,885 crore in revenue during FY26, up 14.6% year on year, while EBITDA increased 18.8% to ₹76,255 crore.
Jio Platforms also crossed ₹30,000 crore in annual profit after tax for the first time in FY26.
Telecom is no longer a supporting business within Reliance. It has become one of the group’s main growth engines.
Retail brought Reliance closer to consumers.
Ambani entered organised retail in 2006 through Reliance Retail. The business has since expanded across grocery, electronics, fashion, jewellery, consumer products and digital commerce.
By the end of Q4 FY26, Reliance Retail had 387 million registered customers and more than 20,000 stores.
Its financial scale has grown alongside its physical footprint. Reliance Retail reported revenue from operations of approximately ₹3.27 lakh crore in FY2025-26, compared with ₹2.91 lakh crore the previous year. EBITDA increased to ₹27,034 crore from ₹25,094 crore.
JioMart and Milkbasket have also added digital channels to the retail operation.
The broader strategy connects physical stores, digital commerce, private labels, consumer brands, logistics and payments. Together, these businesses give Reliance a much deeper presence in everyday consumer spending than its traditional energy operations could provide.
Energy remains the foundation.
The expansion into digital and consumer businesses has not meant abandoning Reliance’s original operations.
Oil-to-Chemicals remains a major part of the group, generating cash and supporting investments in newer businesses.
Reliance reported consolidated revenue of ₹11.76 lakh crore for FY26, up 9.8% from the previous year. EBITDA rose 13.4% to ₹2.08 lakh crore, while profit after tax stood at roughly ₹95,600 crore.
Reliance’s investor presentation said its Retail and Digital businesses together contributed nearly half of FY26 EBITDA. The figure illustrates how significantly the group’s earnings mix has changed.
The company that once depended overwhelmingly on energy and materials is now increasingly driven by consumer and digital businesses as well.
New energy is the next major bet
Ambani’s next major strategic push is new energy.
Reliance is developing the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex in Jamnagar across more than 5,000 acres. The planned ecosystem includes manufacturing facilities for solar photovoltaic modules, batteries, fuel cells, green hydrogen and power electronics.
Reliance has said its solar manufacturing operation is being developed as an integrated supply chain covering quartz, silicon, wafers, cells and modules.
The company’s stated target is to establish and enable at least 100 GW of solar energy by 2030.
Battery manufacturing is another major component. Ambani previously said the battery gigafactory would begin with 40 GWh of annual capacity, with the potential to scale to 100 GWh. An electrolyser gigafactory was planned with annual capacity of up to 3 GW.
By FY26, Reliance said its new-energy programme had moved from construction into commissioning, making Jamnagar an important base for the company’s clean-energy ambitions.
The strategy follows the same industrial model that shaped Reliance’s earlier businesses: build an integrated ecosystem rather than operate a single product line.
AI is becoming part of the strategy.
Artificial intelligence is another area where Reliance is expanding its capabilities.
The company is developing digital infrastructure and AI capabilities alongside Jio’s telecommunications network. With hundreds of millions of subscribers, a large retail customer base and extensive digital infrastructure, Reliance has an existing ecosystem through which AI-powered consumer and enterprise services could be developed.
Jio’s strategy also includes deeper use of 5G, enterprise connectivity, and digital platforms.
Reliance has positioned Jio True5G as a foundation for India’s next phase of digital growth and has set a target of migrating all subscribers to 5G by 2030.
The direction is clear. Telecom infrastructure is increasingly being positioned as the foundation for a wider digital-services business.
Media adds another consumer layer
Reliance’s consumer strategy also extends into entertainment.
The company has built businesses across television, streaming and sports through its media operations and partnerships. Its media ambitions gained further scale through the combination of Reliance’s media assets with Disney’s Indian operations, creating a major entertainment platform.
Jio’s distribution network gives Reliance another channel through which content, advertising and consumer services can reach users.
The businesses increasingly overlap. A single customer can be a Jio subscriber, a Reliance Retail shopper, a digital-content user and a potential financial-services customer.
That interconnected ecosystem is central to Reliance’s broader strategy.
Financial services completes another part of the ecosystem
Reliance’s financial-services business was separated from the core company and listed as Jio Financial Services in 2023.
The business is designed to offer financial products through a technology-driven platform. Reliance has also partnered with BlackRock on a joint venture focused on asset management.
Financial services can naturally be integrated with Jio’s large customer base and Reliance’s wider consumer ecosystem.
The ambition therefore extends beyond creating another financial company. It is to connect financial products with the group’s existing digital and consumer businesses.
The next generation is already taking charge
Succession at Reliance is no longer a distant question.
Mukesh Ambani’s children, Isha Ambani, Akash Ambani and Anant Ambani, joined the Reliance Industries board in 2023.
Akash Ambani has taken a prominent leadership role at Jio. Isha Ambani has been closely involved in Reliance’s retail and consumer businesses, while Anant Ambani has focused on the group’s energy transition and new-energy initiatives.
Their responsibilities broadly correspond with Reliance’s major growth areas across digital and telecommunications, retail and consumer businesses, and energy and new materials.
Rather than waiting for a single succession event, Reliance is gradually distributing leadership responsibilities across the next generation.
The Ambani family’s philanthropic footprint
Reliance’s influence extends beyond its commercial businesses.
Reliance Foundation, chaired by Nita Ambani, works across healthcare, education, rural development, sports, disaster response and other social programmes.
Reliance reported that its broader CSR activities had reached approximately 97 million people by FY2026.
The foundation has also invested in healthcare infrastructure and education, while Nita Ambani has led initiatives in sports and culture, including the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai and the family’s involvement in Indian Olympic and sporting programmes.
Why Ambani remains near the top of India’s wealth rankings
The ₹8.63 lakh crore Hurun estimate represents the value of Mukesh Ambani and his family’s wealth, not a salary or cash balance. A significant portion is linked to ownership stakes and the market value of Reliance-related businesses.
That means the figure can change as the valuations of listed companies move.
Hurun estimated the family’s wealth at ₹9.55 lakh crore in 2025. In 2026, the estimate fell to ₹8.63 lakh crore, placing Ambani behind Adani’s ₹9.22 lakh crore.
A wealth ranking, however, is different from an assessment of business performance.
Reliance reported record consolidated revenue, EBITDA and profit in FY26, while Jio and Retail continued to increase their contribution to the group.
The Mukesh Ambani story is about reinvention.
Mukesh Ambani inherited a company that had already become one of India’s largest industrial businesses.
His defining contribution has been taking Reliance through several different versions of itself. The group first deepened its presence in petrochemicals and refining, followed by the creation of a global-scale energy complex at Jamnagar.
It then moved into organised retail and built Jio, helping drive India’s mobile-data revolution. Today, Reliance is investing in new energy, artificial intelligence, financial services, media and an increasingly digital consumer ecosystem.
The scale of that transformation is visible in the numbers. Reliance generated ₹11.76 lakh crore in consolidated revenue in FY26. Jio had more than 524 million subscribers, while Reliance Retail had 387 million registered customers.
At the same time, Reliance is building a new-energy manufacturing ecosystem in Jamnagar.
The more significant question around Mukesh Ambani, therefore, is no longer simply how much wealth he has.
It is what Reliance will become as the next phase of its transformation unfolds.
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Photo: Bloomberg.com
