What Akash Ambani does in Reliance Jio is mostly out of bounds for outsiders. The elder son of Mukesh Ambani who was involved in the creation of Jio from its concept stage 13 years back eventually threw up a host of surprises, including the launch of India’s first free-voice telecom business in 2016.
These days, Akash spearheads the development of products and services that leverage 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and the Internet of Things. The company aims to enable a generational shift in commerce, education and healthcare delivery with these technologies.
Jio is India’s largest telecom service provider with a wireless subscriber base of 468 million as of February 2024. In FY23, it reported gross revenues of ₹1.15 lakh crore. For the first nine months of FY24, gross revenues stood at ₹94,687 crore.
Akash was appointed the chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) in June 2022. He has served as non-executive director on the board of RJIL since 2014. He is also a part of the leadership team of RIL’s retail arm, Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL), as a director.
Since his appointment as chairman, RJIL has seen its subscriber base grow to 468 million from 413 million, including over 90 million 5G users. The telco has launched Jio True 5G, which covers over 96% of the census towns in the country and carries one-fourth of the mobility data traffic of Jio subscribers. At the India Mobile Congress last year, Akash announced the launch of the satellite-based GigaFibers, which provides wireless broadband services. — Nevin John