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Jio-Bp

Jio-Bp Partners With Zomato To Make 100% EV Fleet By 2030.

Jio-Bp, Reliance Industries’ and London-based BP’s fuel and mobility joint venture, established a partnership with Zomato on Wednesday to deliver electric vehicle (EV) mobility services to the food aggregator in support of its aspirations to have a 100 percent EV fleet by 2030. The new statement comes just days after Jio-Bp revealed plans to establish EV charging and battery-swapping facilities in 12 locations throughout North India. The company will establish its shop on the assets of real estate developer Omaxe. They announced an agreement to support the food delivery company in its ‘The Climate Group’s EV100’ effort.

Jio-Bp
Image source: etimg.com

Jio-bp will provide EV mobility services to Zomato, as well as access to ‘Jio-bp pulse’ branded battery switching stations for last-mile deliveries, according to a company release.

“The collaboration is poised to accelerate EV adoption in the rapidly growing Indian delivery and transportation segment,” it added.

Source: businesstoday.in

Zomato last year joined the non-profit The Climate’s worldwide electric mobility program EV100, with the goal of having 100% EVs in their fleet by 2030. EVs are already available on the Gurugram-based company’s platform in cities such as India Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.

The current EV fleet is a small fraction of the active fleet of delivery partners, and we understand that getting to 100 percent adoption of EVs will not be easy, but is essential in the long run,” Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in June last year when the company announced its EV-focused plans.

Source: gadgets360.com

The lack of charging infrastructure and restricted battery range are two major obstacles for Zomato in expanding its EV fleet. This could be rectified as a result of the most recent collaboration. Jio-Bp’s Pulse brand provides consumers with EV charging infrastructure.

Earlier this month, the Indian affiliate of British automaker MG Motor joined together with oil manufacturer Castrol to explore mobility options for EVs in the nation with Jio-Bp. TVS Motor and Mahindra Group are also significant automobile businesses in the joint venture, which will develop solutions for a variety of consumer and commercial EVs. In addition to Jio-Bp, Zomato has local vendors in select locations such as Zypp, Eveez, and Bud-e to facilitate its continuous transition to an EV fleet.

Reliance BP Mobility, which runs under the Jio-Bp brand, collaborated with Zomato’s archival Swiggy last year to create an ecosystem for EV battery-swapping stations across the country. Reliance BP Mobility Limited (RBML) is an Indian fuels and mobility joint venture between Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and bp that operates under the brand ‘Jio-bp.’ The JV established one of the country’s largest EV charging stations in Delhi in January 2022, as the partners expand their fuel retail network, including several fuel options as well as EV charging infrastructure. The collaboration also aims to assist in the development of greener and more cost-effective delivery fleet options.

Jio-bp built and launched two of India’s largest EV charging stations last year. The Jio-bp pulse brand represents the JV’s electric mobility company, which provides charging infrastructure to Indian consumers. Customers can use the Jio-bp pulse mobile app to identify nearby charging stations and charge their EVs seamlessly.

Jio-bp also announced as part of the arrangement that it will set up EV charging and switching infrastructure at various Omaxe properties across 12 cities. Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, New Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar, Jaipur, Sonipat, and Bahadurgarh are among them. It will do so incrementally.

Justdial

VSS Mani, Started A Business On “Wedding Planning” But Was Not Satisfied And Founded Justdial.

Justdial is an Indian start-up founded in 1996 for offering the public a huge database for conducting a local search. The website of Justdial contains information about any particular company or service from contact number, address, etc. to the details of service provided across the country. So, anyone can look up the website or mobile app of Justdial to find information about any local service that we usually don’t get on the internet. Justdial has more than 10,000 employees and has offices all over the country, like in New Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Chandigarh, etc. Its headquarters is based in Mumbai, India, and the majority of its stake is currently owned by Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited.

About Justdial

VSS Mani is the founder and CEO of Justdial. The company offers local search as its primary service and apart from that it has two other services, “Justdial Social” and “Search Plus Service.” The former is a service that involves aggregating content from various social media websites, news sources, etc and the latter is responsible for managing online transactions through various apps. Justdial has also entered foreign markets and that includes opening international offices in UAE, UK, USA, and Canada. In India, the company has a total of fifteen offices.

Justdial can be accessed from both mobile and computers. Apart from the official website of the company, it has launched individual mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Blackberry. After Justdial was launched it focussed on every aspect of growth, from expanding to new overseas markets to strengthening the company’s SME relationships. Some of the major investors of the company are SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, SAP Ventures, etc.

Justdial
Image source: startuptalky.com

History

VSS Mani, before founding Justdial, had several other business ideas but none of them survived in the market for a long time. Mani agrees that he has learned from the mistakes of his past business endeavors and finally made Justdial a successful brand. When Mani had the idea to develop a website with a huge database, he was working for a yellow page company. This was during the late 1980s when he thought of replacing the yellow pages with a huge database. The users will have access to the database so that they can call any service provider and receive the necessary information. Today, Justdial has a database of more than 29 million listings and over 500,000 active paid campaigns.

Growth and Expansion

Though Justdial was officially launched in 1996, Mani started working on the idea in 1994 with an investment of 50,000 rupees. He rented a garage and some PCs, borrowed furniture to start the groundwork, and also hired 5-6 employees. Justdial became a popular website within a few years and just a decade later the company launched an internet and mobile version of the database, Justdial.com. In 2011, the company was able to raise $10 million followed by $57 million in the next year. All the fundings were judiciously invested to launch new products, develop the brand, and expand geographically.

Justdial decided to go public in 2013 and out of the total 17.3 million shares, 13.5 million were offered to the public. The rest of the shares were given to the previous investors of the company at a rate of 530 rupees per share. The share price of Justdial saw many ups and downs as it went as high as 1894 rupees in August 2014 and then the next year decreased to a triple-digit number. In July 2021, Reliance Retail acquired a 66.95% stake in the company for 3,497 crore rupees. After these acquisitions, Reliance got access to the 25-year old database of the company and VSS Mani withheld his position as the CEO and MD of Justdial.

About the Founder

VSS Mani was born in Jamshedpur and was raised in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He pursued commerce for higher studies and founded three organizations. Mani’s entrepreneurial journey started with “AskMe” but due to improper timing, the business failed shortly. He also started a business on “Wedding Planning” but was not satisfied with the business model or the profit margin. Later with proper business strategies and thorough research, he founded Justdial and made it a huge success.

Amazon

Amazon accuses Future Group of insider trading in new push to block Reliance deal

Amazon has made a few arguments and asked India’s market regulators to look into the Future Retail deal with Reliance Industries. The company has accused Future Retail of insider trading, a letter confirmed by Reuters as it seeks to stop its business partner from becoming a part of the rival’s dynasty. In response to this accusation, Future Group has asked the court for a restraining order so that Amazon cannot approach the regulators which might put the deal with Reliance in jeopardy.

Amazon has been putting pressure on the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to review the deal of Reliance that took place in August. The August deal between Reliance and the Future Group announced the acquisition of the retail, wholesale, logistics, and warehousing business of the latter for Rs 24,713 crore via Reliance Retail Ventures.

Why Amazon is making accusations?

Amazon has made it clear that it had an agreement with the Future Group in 2019 that prevented the Indian group’s retail assets from selling to some specific parties. Reliance is one of those parties that Future Group is barred from selling the assets. Amazon now accuses the Future Group that it has disclosed price-sensitive details of an injunction granted by a Singapore arbitrator to Reliance in order to block its deal with the same. In response to these allegations, the Future Group has included in its statement that Amazon needs a “tutorial on the law on insider trading”.

The deal along with accusations and the judgment will be an example of how the Indian firms and the judiciary system values the arbitration decision made following overseas arbitration rules. This may come as another backlash for Amazon which will degrade its reputation more as it is already facing antitrust challenges.

Amazon
Image Source: gadgets.ndtv.com

The injunction Amazon speaks of was granted on 25th October while the company welcomed the decision. On the same day, Reliance informed that it has informed of the arbitration order and the company will enforce its rights to complete the deal with Future Group as early as possible. But, now Amazon in its 20-page letter to the SEBI accused that Reliance was secretive about the price details of the injunction.

What if the Reliance deal fails?

Amidst the accusations that Amazon has made to scupper the deal, Future Retail will go into liquidation if the deal with Reliance Industries is not successful. The 130-page order by the arbitrator shows the level of concern in the Future Retail of this deal breaks. More than 1,500 outlets of Future Retail will have to pack up creating havoc for thousands of employees and the workers in the vendor firms. Future Retail has taken the decision to go for liquidation which means the earning of more than 29,000 employees will stop at once.

Future Retail said that after the pandemic has struck the world, the retail sector has been hit hard. And, this deal with Reliance was supposed to protect the interest of the stakeholders by the acquisition of the liabilities and huge funding. Amazon, after filing accusations has made its relationship sore with both Future Retail and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance.

Future Group defends itself

While Amazon is putting allegations on the Future Retail and Reliance, a spokesperson for Future has made a statement to Reuters that Amazon has made wrongful allegations. The news of the injunction was made public on Sunday. Neither Reliance nor SEBI has made any comments to Reuters after this and Amazon has also declined to comment regarding the content of the letter.

Future Retail has further told that the agreement Amazon is talking about regarding preventing from selling the assets to Reliance was with a separate Future Group unit. It has also mentioned that on 26th October Future Retail said that they were examining the arbitration order and the same should be tested by Indian law.

Now, we can do nothing but wait and observe the decision of the Indian court. It is important for the regulators as well to choose the right side between Amazon and Future Retail. Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, losing a job for thousands of employees will make the economy worse.

Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio – Indian company that started the wave of the wireless 4G network all across India

Everyone demands a faster network and in fact, it is the need of the present era. However, Reliance Jio started the wave of 4G in the Indian telecom market in 2016. With affordable prices and a faster network, Reliance Jio became much popular in India. In fact, it became India’s largest mobile operator as of 2019. As well, it is 3rd largest mobile network operator in the world. Presently, the firm has been covering more than 22 telecom circles, and about 38.75 million uses the Jio network. The firm has also launched fiber to home service recently in 2019.

All About Reliance Jio

An Indian telecommunication firm Reliance Jio is well-known all over the world. It is headquartered in Mumbai, India. The firm is known for introducing LTE network all across the country, covering more than 22 telecom circles. As well, the firm made use of voice over LTE to enable voice service on the 4G network.

In 2015, the firm launched Jio soft as a beta version. Initially, it was limited to employees and partners. While it was made public in 2016 and soon became a major mobile network operator in India. The firm also launched fiber to home service in 2019. With this, it enables services like home broadband, TV, and telephone services. Recently, the firm was in the news as it raised about 21 billion dollars in 2020. For this, Jio sold 32.97% equity stakes in the Jio platform.

The person behind Jio’s success- Mukesh Ambani

Mr. Mukesh Ambani, the head of the Reliance industry is one of the successful industrial leaders of India. This person not only maintains the name of Reliance but also grow the network of the business all over the world. One of such milestones led by Mr. Mukesh is Reliance Jio. Today, it became some of the most expansive 4G broadband wireless networks in the world. Apart from the business, he holds many prestigious memberships of international organizations. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Foundation board. As well, he is having the membership of the United States National Academy of Engineering.

History

Initially, the firm was registered with the name Infotel Broadband services Limited in 2007 at Ambawadi, Gujarat. After three years, the Reliance industry acquired IBSL with 95% stakes. At that time, the firm has already had 4G broadband spectrums in all 22 circles in India. Since then it is one of the subsidiaries of the Reliance industry. In 2013, the firm has entered the telecommunication market with the name Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited.

Reliance Jio
Image Source: counterpointresearch.com

Launching the 4G service for free

The firm launched 4G service in 2015. But initially, it was for an internal purpose, for employees and the office. However, it was made available for consumers in 2016. For almost one year, Jio offered free data and voice services which later on extended to March 2017. With this free offer, Jio has acquired a number of users, crossing the number of 1.6 crores. In just 83 days, the firm set the record by acquiring more than 50 million subscribers. As well, it also reached 100 million subscribers in a year.

Controversies

Just after it entered the consumer market, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation filed a PIL in SC against JIO. As per that PIL, the Indian government accused of granting a pan-India license to JIO. It also alleged JIO for taking additional fees for voice telephony with its 4G data service. However, the Supreme court revoked the PIL as the government and Jio explain the rules which they followed.

Products and services

The firm entered the market with 4G broadband service in 2016. As of 2018, the firm introduced Jio GigaFiber as well as broadband internet. As well, it launched television and landline service in the same year. On the third anniversary of Jio, it made a surprising announcement to offer streaming of films in theatre for JioFiber subscribers.  Currently, the firm covers the network of more than 250k km of fiber optic cables in India. By way of launching 4G all across India, Jio has started offering free wi-fi services in cities all across the nation.

Introducing JioPhone

In 2017, the JioPhone create a buzz in the mobile industry for its affordable price that actually works on the 4G network. Many consumers booked the JioPhone overnight and enjoyed the speed of 4G. With the huge popularity of the first model, the firm unveiled the second version of it in the following year. JioPhone became hit among mid-age persons as it is simple to use yet, comes with advanced features.  As well, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Youtube can be accessed easily on JioPhone.

Jio apps

Like the grand entry in 4G service, Jio launched a number of apps on Google Play. These apps are free and available in various segments. Like health, entertainment, Messaging, as well as apps for backups. Only one thing is needed to enter in Jio’s app world, i.e., Jio number. Some of the apps in the entertainment segment are JioCinema, JioTV, JioNews, JioSaavan, etc. For chat and video calls, the apps are JioPages, JioMeet. Other apps are JioHealth, JioMoney, JioVoice, MyJio, and many others that are available on the play store.