Mukesh Ambani became Asia’s richest person again after Reliance shares surged nearly 12% on Monday. Forbes reported his wealth rose to $88.8 billion, pushing him ahead of Zhang Yiming. The rally followed strong quarterly earnings and the successful debut of Jio Platforms, which saw its shares gain 27% on October 28.
According to Forbes’ report on Monday’s Real-Time Billionaires list, the Reliance chairman’s wealth rose 10.5% to $88.8 billion. That put him ahead of ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming, whose fortune was estimated at $84 billion. Ambani ranked 23rd globally in the list, while Zhang was 25th.
The $4.8 billion gap opened as investors reassessed a conglomerate whose fortunes stretch from oil refining and petrochemicals to telecom, retail and digital services.
Earnings behind the leap
Reliance shares surged nearly 12%, adding more than $19 billion to its market value. Bloomberg described it as a record single-day market-value gain for an Indian company and Reliance’s strongest share-price rally since April 2020.
The immediate trigger was an earnings beat. Profit attributable to shareholders rose 40.6% to Rs 25,548 crore in the September quarter, its regulatory filing showed.
Reliance’s own disclosures put quarterly gross revenue at Rs 3,62,268 crore and EBITDA at Rs 62,409 crore. Its oil-to-chemicals business delivered EBITDA of Rs 25,203 crore, up 67.9%, as stronger fuel margins lifted earnings.
The response from analysts was unusually emphatic. Avendus Spark upgraded Reliance from “reduce” to “add”, leaving it with 32 buy recommendations and no hold or sell calls for the first time since 2017, according to Bloomberg.
Jio adds another boost
The rally followed a strong debut for Jio Platforms, Reliance’s digital and telecommunications business. Its shares gained about 27% on October 28, adding a separately traded valuation to one of the group’s biggest businesses.
Forbes reported that Jio’s IPO raised $3.2 billion at a valuation of roughly $106 billion. Reliance management said its debut made Jio India’s second-most valuable listed company, behind its parent.
The company described the Rs 30,188 crore share sale as India’s largest IPO, another milestone for the Ambani-controlled telecom business.
The business also continues to expand. Reliance’s latest earnings presentation put Jio’s subscriber base at 542 million at September-end, including 300 million 5G users.
Together, the results and listing gave investors fresh numbers for both Reliance’s established energy operations and its expanding digital business.
A comeback with ground to recover
The exuberance followed a difficult stretch. Bloomberg reported that Reliance had fallen more than 20% during the year before Monday’s rally, amid concerns about earnings momentum, including in retail.
His estimated wealth remains sensitive to share prices, making Monday’s ranking a snapshot of investor confidence rather than a permanent position.