Reliance Industries Becomes India's Largest Company, Tops Fortune India 500 List

Reliance Industries ended state-owned Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) 10-year tenure as India’s largest company, topping the Fortune India 500 list.

With revenue of ₹5.81 lakh crore in 2018-19, the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate also became the first and only privately-held company to become India’s largest corporation apart from IOC for the first time in 10 years, Fortune India said.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was ranked third, followed by State Bank of India, Tata Motors and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL).

Rajesh Exports climbed one position to be ranked 7th on the 2019 list and so did Tata Steel, Coal India, Tata Consultancy Services and Larsen & Toubro that were ranked 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th, respectively.

ICICI Bank jumped two positions to be ranked 12th, followed by Hindalco Industries and HDFC Bank. Vedanta Ltd slipped three positions to be ranked 18th on the 2019 list.

Fortune India said RIL posted a 41.5 per cent rise in its revenue in the financial year 2018-19, which was 8.4 per cent more than IOC, the second-largest company on the list.

RIL’s 2018-19 revenue stood at ₹5.81 lakh crore, while IOC witnessed a growth of 26.6 per cent in sales to ₹5.36 lakh crore in the same year. RIL’s profit for 2018-19 was also more than double that of IOC, at ₹39,588 crores.

“Over the past 10 years, the oil-to-retail conglomerate’s profit has been an average three times higher than that of IOC. The highest it touched compared to IOC was up to 4.8 times, in FY15 when RIL’s profit was ₹23,566 crore and the public sector major’s stood at ₹4,912 crores,” it said.

Overall, the revenue of the Fortune India 500 companies in the 2019 list grew 9.53 per cent, while profit increased 11.8 per cent.

This year, the total loss recorded by the 500 companies also reduced, with 65 companies recording a cumulative loss of ₹1.67 lakh crore, compared to last year’s ₹2 lakh crore racked up by 79 companies, Fortune India said.

14 of 22 public sector banks reported cumulative losses of ₹74,253 crores. In contrast, just two private sector banks posted losses (IDFC First Bank, at ₹1,907.9 crores; and Lakshmi Vilas Bank, at ₹894.1 crore). The total profit of 24 of private sector banks (including foreign banks and cooperative banks) was ₹60,747 crore, a 6.16 per cent increase over 2017-18.

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