Reliance Industries: Why Motilal, Jefferies, Nomura see up to 28% upside after Jio IPO filing 

Jefferies maintained a ‘Buy’ rating on Reliance Industries with a target price of Rs 1,675, implying 28% upside.. Nomura maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,640, implying 23.5% upside. Motilal Oswal Financial Services reiterated its ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,655, implying about 26% upside.

The broad message from the AGM was that Reliance is trying to open multiple growth engines at once. Jio is headed for a public listing, Retail is pushing deeper into manufacturing and exports, RCPL is scaling up as a consumer brands platform, New Energy is moving from capex to commercialisation, and Reliance Intelligence is being positioned as a long-duration AI business built on in-house data centres, renewable power and consumer applications.

Jio IPO moves closer, with value unlocking back in focus

The most immediate trigger from the AGM was the progress on Jio Platforms’ IPO. Reliance said Jio’s board had approved the draft red herring prospectus and filed it with SEBI the same day, putting the telecom and digital arm on track for a possible listing by the end of 2026, subject to approvals.

Nomura maintained a ‘Buy’ rating on Reliance Industries with a target price of Rs 1,640, implying 23.5% upside, and said the issue would be a 100% primary offering, with Jio set to issue 270 million shares at a face value of Rs 10 each. That would result in equity dilution of about 2.9%. The proceeds are expected to be used to retire debt. Nomura pegged Jio’s FY26-end net debt, excluding lease liabilities and spectrum dues, at around Rs 276 billion.

The IPO is also central to the market’s value-unlocking thesis for Reliance. Nomura cited media reports suggesting a valuation band of roughly Rs 11 trillion to Rs 12 trillion for Jio Platforms, or about $117 billion to $127 billion. It compared that with an equity valuation of around Rs 11.6 trillion for Bharti Airtel, though it noted Airtel’s market value also includes holdings in Airtel Africa and Indus Towers.

Motilal Oswal maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,655, implying about 26% upside, and also framed the listing as one of five major value-creation pathways for Reliance. It said Jio Platforms was likely to remain the biggest growth driver within the group, helped by tariff hikes, wireless market-share gains, broadband expansion and a widening digital-services stack.

Jio’s operating metrics remain one of the strongest parts of the Reliance story

The Jio business remains central to the Reliance Industries Ltd. investment case because of both scale and profitability.

Nomura maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,640 and said Jio ended FY26 with more than 524 million subscribers, making it India’s largest telecom operator by subscriber base. It also had more than 268 million 5G subscribers, with management targeting migration of all subscribers to 5G by 2030 while also participating in 6G standards.

In FY26, Jio reported revenue of Rs 1,468.9 billion, up 14.6% year-on-year, EBITDA of Rs 762.6 billion, up 18.8%, and adjusted profit after tax of Rs 300.5 billion, up 15.1%. EBITDA margin stood at 51.9%.

Nomura also pointed to Jio’s home broadband push, saying JioAirFiber had reached 13 million connected homes and was adding roughly 60,000 connections a day. The report said the network carried 241 exabytes of data in FY26, up 30.8%, while per-capita monthly data consumption stood at 42.3 GB.

The DRHP also gave a view of the medium-term telecom opportunity. Nomura said it expected mobile broadband ARPU in India to rise to Rs 326.4 a month by FY31 from Rs 214 a month in 4QFY26, driven by higher data usage and rising disposable incomes.

Reliance Intelligence turns from concept into execution plan

The AGM also marked a more detailed rollout of Reliance’s AI strategy, which is now being housed under Reliance Intelligence.

Jefferies maintained a ‘Buy’ rating on Reliance Industries with a target price of Rs 1,675, implying 28% upside, and said Reliance reiterated its plan to build India’s sovereign AI backbone and remained on track to commission the first 120 MW of AI-ready data-centre capacity by end-CY26. It added that Reliance’s access to capital, fibre infrastructure and captive renewable energy could make it a serious player in India’s data-centre and AI infrastructure market.

Nomura maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,640, implying 23.5% upside, and described the AI business as an early-stage, capex-heavy optionality play, but one with strategic significance because it sits at the intersection of telecom, cloud infrastructure, consumer applications and enterprise services. It said the Jamnagar sovereign AI hub was targeting the first 120 MW by end-FY26E and would run Nvidia GB300 GPUs, equivalent to more than 75,000 H100 GPUs on an inference basis, scalable to over 200,000 H100-equivalent GPUs.

The company also outlined its product ambitions. Jefferies said Reliance was building local-language AI applications for education, healthcare, SMEs and agriculture. Nomura said the broader AI stack would span products such as JioBharatIQ, AI Vyapar, JioHealthIQ, JioLearnIQ and JioKrishiIQ, while consumer offerings would include Jio Call Agent and AI features inside MyJio.

Partnerships with Google and Meta are a key part of that strategy. Jefferies said Google AI Pro powered by Gemini was already being offered, while a Meta partnership would support the deployment of Llama-based models for Indian enterprises. Nomura also said Meta had leased 168 MW of data-centre capacity in Jamnagar.

Retail and FMCG are being recast as manufacturing and export-led growth engines

If Jio is the near-term listing story, Retail and FMCG are the businesses where Reliance is trying to widen the earnings base over the next several years.

Jefferies maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,675, implying 28% upside, and said Reliance Retail and RCPL were building two new growth engines: an integrated manufacturing platform and an exports platform. The manufacturing strategy spans beverages, staples and fresh produce, with backward integration, AI-led food parks and cluster-led sourcing. It is also being extended to garments and is planned across affordable electronics.

The scale of the capex plan is substantial. Jefferies said RCPL had already invested Rs 100 billion in beverages and earmarked a further Rs 300 billion. Nomura similarly said Reliance planned around Rs 300 billion of additional food-park investment over the next three years.

RCPL’s ambition remains aggressive. Jefferies said the company was targeting revenue of more than $10 billion, or roughly Rs 1 trillion, by FY30 and was aiming to become one of India’s largest FMCG companies with a global platform. Motilal Oswal also cited the same Rs 1 trillion FY30 revenue target for RCPL.

Nomura provided more detail on the current operating base. It said RCPL’s gross revenue was around Rs 220 billion in FY26, roughly doubling year-on-year, with products present in more than 40 countries. Campa crossed Rs 47 billion in revenue and Independence generated Rs 26 billion.

At the retail level, Nomura said Reliance Retail posted gross revenue of Rs 3,700.3 billion in FY26, up 11.8% year-on-year, with EBITDA of Rs 270.3 billion, up 7.9%, and profit after tax of Rs 138.4 billion, up 12%. The business ended the year with 387 million registered customers, 20,160 stores and 78 million square feet of retail space.

Quick commerce was another standout area. Nomura said JioMart now had more than 3,100 stores across over 1,200 cities and 5,100-plus PIN codes, with average daily orders up 3.6 times and repeat orders up six times.

New Energy is moving from promise to first revenues

The other major AGM theme was New Energy, where the market has long been waiting for evidence of commissioning and monetisation.

Jefferies maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,675, implying 28% upside, and said the solar module plant had achieved 1 GW production and was ramping up with captive cells. It also said the first phase of the energy storage systems battery plant, with capacity of 40 GWh, was due to be commissioned in CY26 and could be expanded modularly to 120 GWh. Commercial revenues from New Energy, according to Jefferies, should begin in FY27.

Nomura’s framing was similar but broader. It maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,640 and said solar cell and module lines had already been commissioned and that Reliance had produced around 1 GW of high-efficiency HJT modules, alongside India’s first ALMM listing for HJT technology. The long-term goal is to build 20 GW per year of fully integrated solar manufacturing capacity.

On batteries, Nomura said the first phase of the 40 GWh battery gigafactory would be commissioned this year, with the business eventually scaling to 120 GWh. It also pointed to a 5.5-lakh-acre renewable hub in Kutch targeting more than 40 billion units of green power a year.

Green hydrogen and related molecules remain a longer-dated opportunity, but one that brokerages highlighted prominently. Jefferies said Reliance was targeting 3 million metric tonnes per annum of green hydrogen over the next 10 years. Nomura said the group had signed a $3 billion long-term green-ammonia supply agreement with Samsung C&T and was building electrolyser capacity for green urea, UAN, green ammonia and bio-methanol.

O2C and energy cash flows still matter, especially as petchem margins improve

While much of the AGM spotlight was on telecom, AI and new energy, the legacy O2C and upstream businesses remain critical because they fund much of Reliance’s expansion elsewhere.

Jefferies maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,675, implying 28% upside, and said O2C could benefit from stronger petrochemical margins. It noted that average PE, PP and PET margins were up 140% versus pre-conflict levels, helped in part by supply disruptions in Iran and Saudi Arabia and a slower normalisation of naphtha exports to North-East Asia.

Nomura said the O2C business delivered FY26 revenue of Rs 6,624 billion and EBITDA of Rs 605.5 billion, up 10.1% year-on-year. It added that Reliance continued to invest in higher-value downstream integration, including a 3 million tonne PTA plant at Dahej, a 1.2 million tonne PVC plant at Nagothane and a carbon-fibre facility at Hazira.

In E&P, Nomura said FY26 revenue stood at Rs 238.6 billion and EBITDA at Rs 190.5 billion. Gas production was around 26 million metric standard cubic metres per day, or roughly 30% of India’s output, while oil production was about 18,000 barrels per day.

Motilal Oswal maintained a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,655, implying about 26% upside, and said E&P production was likely to plateau, with KG-D6 producing around 26 mmscmd of gas and 18 kbpd of oil, but noted that downstream integration and specialty materials remained a strategic focus.

Why brokerages stayed positive on the stock

The positive stance from brokerages rests on a combination of visible triggers and valuation support.

Jefferies expects about 14% EBITDA CAGR in retail over FY26-FY28 and about 9% EBITDA CAGR in O2C over the same period. Its base-case target price of Rs 1,675 implies 28% upside, while its upside scenario target of Rs 1,900 implies 45% upside.

Nomura maintained its ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 1,640, implying 23.5% upside, and aid the next catalysts after the Jio IPO could come from three areas: revenue contribution from New Energy starting FY27, growth of the AI business with 120 MW capacity by FY26-end, and a potential future listing of the retail business.

Motilal Oswal also expectsReliance Retail to deliver over 12% revenue CAGR over the same period, though faster growth in lower-margin businesses could weigh on blended margins. Overall, it modelled around 9% to 10% CAGR in consolidated EBITDA and profit after tax over FY26-FY28.

What the AGM changed, and what it did not

The AGM did not fundamentally alter the Reliance story. The Jio IPO is no longer a broad future possibility but an active process with a tentative year-end listing window. The AI business has moved from aspiration to project execution, with 120 MW of capacity now tied to a commissioning timeline. New Energy has crossed the point where the market can start tracking actual production, battery commissioning and revenue contribution. 

Retail and RCPL, meanwhile, are being positioned less as store-expansion stories and more as manufacturing, supply-chain and export platforms. That combination explains why brokerages largely came out of the AGM with their positive stance intact.

Conclusion

Reliance’s 49th AGM sharpened the market’s focus on four triggers: the Jio IPO, the buildout of Reliance Intelligence, the start of New Energy revenues in FY27 and the next leg of growth in Retail and RCPL.

For the stock, that means the core debate is no longer whether Reliance has enough growth engines. It is whether these new businesses can start contributing meaningfully enough, and soon enough, to justify a rerating from current levels. On that count, the AGM gave brokerages enough to stay constructive.

Disclaimer: The stock ratings, target prices, and valuation estimates from institutional brokerages mentioned in this report are for informational purposes only and do not constitute direct investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any securities. Equity investments are subject to market risks, regulatory changes, and project execution timelines. Readers should conduct independent evaluation and consult a SEBI-registered investment advisor or financial consultant before making financial decisions or capital allocations based on these projections.

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