Mukesh Ambani, worth a billion dollars, has stepped down from his position as director of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., the digital branch of the enormous Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries. His son Akash Ambani, who had previously served as a non-executive director, has been given the head of the board of directors for the company Reliance Jio Infocomm.
Subject to the consent of the business’s shareholders, Pankaj Mohan Pawar has been named managing director of the firm, and Raminder Singh Gujral and K.V. Chowdary have been appointed additional directors for five years each.
Reliance Jio is the market leader in the telecommunications area in India, and the company’s Jio Platforms, whose investors include Facebook, Google, Silver Lake, and Vista Equity Partners, runs the streaming services JioTV and JioCinema. The position of chair of Jio Platforms continues to be held by Mukesh Ambani.
In light of the recent seismic shifts that have taken place in the Indian media landscape, mobile and streaming platforms are of the utmost importance. An online auction for two packages of digital rights to Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket was won by a consortium led by the Ambani-backed Viacom18 group earlier this month. The consortium paid a total of $3 billion to win the auction.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket will provide Viacom18 with an opportunity to transition viewers away from its linear TV channels and onto the digital platforms offered by Reliance Jio. This directly impacts Reliance Industries’ strength because India is a mobile-led market. According to the most recent report from Deloitte, the country is on track to reach 1 billion smartphone users by the year 2026. Jio, which Ambani owns, is India’s most popular mobile service provider. As of 2022, there were 1.14 billion mobile users in India. Jio had 407 million members. There are around 750 million people who use smartphones.
The fact that Mukesh Ambani is now 65 years old makes it abundantly clear that the decision to appoint his elder son Akash, who is currently 30 years old, was made with an eye toward succession. The company also mentioned that the appointment of Raminder Singh Gujral and KV Chowdary as additional company directors, designated as independent directors, has been approved by the board of directors. Their terms will begin on June 27, 2022, and they will remain in their positions until June 27, 2022.