Anil Ambani is Telecom Person of the Year 2007

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is Voice and Data’s Telecom Person of the Year 2007. Anil Ambani assumed charge of Reliance Infocomm [subsequently name changed to Reliance Communications] in June-2005 after the division of Reliance empire with elder brother Mukesh Ambani. [Photo: Anil Ambani entering DAKC after assuming charge as the Chairman of Reliance Infocomm]

It has been widely reported that Reliance Infocomm was Mukesh’s brainchild while Anil got a cake walk entry. Anil had a tougher task on his hand to escape the image of flamboyancy by virtue of his Political and Bollywood connections which the press had painted. Anil together with Amitabh Jhunjhunwala and their core team got to the task from day one. Laid out a blue print for RCom and today RCom is the third largest Telecom company in India.

Major milestones reached by Reliance Communications under Anil Ambani are

• Subscriber base grew over 28 million, registering a 60% growth last fiscal
• Revenue for the last fiscal was Rs 14,468 crore with a net bottomline of Rs 3,163 crore
• RCom market cap crossed Rs 100,000 crore
• Reliance Wireless services to be available in 23,000 towns and 600,000 villages
• Reliance to launch IPTV and DTH services
• Reliance launched the first Wimax broadband network for consumers in Bangalore
• Reliance started the low cost handset war in India by introducing Rs 777 classic brand CDMA handset
• Reliance owns largest Undersea OFC Network in the world
• Reliance enters US Datacom Market by acquisition of Yipes

This list is endless. In short, Anil Ambani has set his eye to become the new media baron of the world. If a Lebanese born, Mexican raised businessman can become the world’s richest person, why can’t Anil Ambani, who is the second richest in the world’s largest democracy ? Congratulations! Mr. Ambani.

Tags: Anil Ambani, Telecom, India, Reliance

Photo Courtesy: A .Srinivas