Mumbai: Few companies hold their annual general meetings (AGM) with as much fanfare as Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India’s most valuable company, whose chairperson Mukesh Ambani sets ambitious targets every year, keeping with the tradition started by his father and group founder Dhirubhai Ambani nearly half a century ago.
Over the past half-decade, which was marred by one global disruption after another, Reliance has missed more targets set at the AGM than it has achieved, as per Mint’s review of the prior AGM speeches ahead of the company’s 2026 general meeting on Friday.
The announcements made at Reliance’s AGM have a significant bearing on the company’s stock price, making a report card of how the company fared on its past targets crucial as investors gear up for another AGM on Friday. In four of the last five years, Reliance shares lost between 1% and 2.5% on the day of the AGM. The shares gained 1.64% on the day of the AGM in 2024.
On Friday, the scrip opened marginally higher at ₹1,331 on the BSE, having lost over 15% since the beginning of 2026.
Reliance indicated a listing of its telecommunications arm Jio will make a public market debut in the first half of 2026. That timeline is likely stretched after the war in Iran upended the Indian equities market with the flight of global capital.
There have been several misses in the new energy business vertical touted as the oil-to-telecom conglomerate’s next big growth engine. For instance, in June 2021, Ambani said Reliance will make an initial investment of ₹75,000 crore in the new energy vertical over the next three years. The money was to be invested in setting up four giga factories, including an integrated solar module unit, a battery unit, an electrolyser unit, and a fuel cell unit.
Five years on, the investment figure guidance remains unchanged, with no indication of how much capital has been spent so far. The purported integrated solar factory has only started trial production and makes cells and modules so far, per the company’s latest investor presentation and annual report published over the past two months.
The planned backward integration into manufacturing the precursors to solar cells - wafers, ingots, and polysilicon - is far behind schedule.
Details are scant on the progress made by Reliance on the purported fuel cell and electrolyzer gigafactories.
In 2021, Ambani also said that Reliance will help set up 100 gigawatts out of India’s target of adding 450 gigawatts of solar energy by 2030. This would be through multiple modes, right from small rooftop units and to large utility scale plants. In the subsequent years, the scope was widened to renewable energy to include other sources like wind. However, the company has yet to share any progress on this front.
The subsequent year, the Reliance chairperson indicated that within two years, the company would set up a 5 gigawatt-hour battery assembly plant that would be critical for delivering round-the-clock renewable energy. During the subsequent years, the capacity for this plant was upped to 30 gigawatt-hour and then 40 gigawatt-hour. The plant is expected to be operational soon, the company said in its latest investor presentation, more than two years after the expiry of the original deadline.
To be sure, the past half-decade has witnessed global disruptions like the covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical flare-ups, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the US and Israel’s war on Iran, upending plans of companies around the globe. Ambani had stated in 2022 that Reliance would look to double its value by 2027, but the value erosion brought on by global disruptions has meant that the ₹18 trillion market capitalization of Reliance Industries Ltd today is less than what it was when the target was set.
The target was then redefined in 2025 to double the company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) by 2027 on the ₹1.25 trillion base of FY22. With ₹2.1 trillion Ebitda in FY26, the company is likely to achieve this target.
While there have been misses, there have been some big hits, too. In 2022, Ambani said Jio will roll out 5G with pan-India coverage in 18 months. The target was achieved on time.
The company also said in 2022 that it would set up a dedicated fast-moving consumer goods business, which it did soon after. The business achieved ₹22,000 crore in revenue in FY26, doubling from the previous year. The company had also guided for continuous acquisitions by its consumer goods business, which it delivered with the buyout of brands such as Campa, Ravalgaon, and Southern Health Foods.
