Indian business magnate Mukesh Ambani topples Jack Ma as Asia’s richest person

Mukesh Ambani has overtaken Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma as Asia’s richest person as he positions Reliance Industries to disrupt the e-commerce space in India.

The chairman of India’s refining-to-telecoms conglomerate, Ambani was estimated to be worth US$44.3 billion on Friday with the share price of Reliance Industries rising 1.6 per cent to a record 1,099.8 rupees (US$16.05), according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ma’s wealth stood at US$44 billion at the close of trading on Friday in the US, where the company is listed. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

Ambani’s fortune has risen US$4 billion this year as Reliance doubled its petrochemicals capacity and investors cheered the success of his disruptive telecoms upstart Reliance Jio Infocomm. This month, the tycoon unveiled plans to leverage his 215 million telecom subscribers to expand his e-commerce offerings, taking on Amazon.com and Walmart. Alibaba Group Holding’s Ma has lost US$1.4 billion in 2018.

“We need to broaden our horizon of expectation with Reliance,” said Nitin Tiwari, a Mumbai-based analyst at Antique Stock Broking. “They are in for something really transformational.”

Ambani, best known for executing large-scale projects, spearheaded construction of the world’s largest refining complex in Jamnagar, owns the most widespread mobile data network globally and claims to have India’s biggest as well as most profitable retail firm.

At this month’s annual shareholders’ meeting, Ambani said Reliance saw its “biggest growth opportunity in creating a hybrid, online-to-offline new commerce platform”, involving the group’s Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio businesses. The “size of Reliance will more than double” by 2025, Ambani said at the meeting.

Jio will introduce a fibre-based broadband service across 1,100 Indian cities in August in what Ambani said would be the biggest greenfield fixed-line roll-out anywhere in the world.