Rise Of The ₹1 Lakh Crore Club

Fortune 500 India club sees explosive topline growth with record nine companies surging past ₹1 lakh crore revenue even as profit engine sputters.

- V. KESHAVDEV

ANY GUESSES on how many years did it take for the first Indian company to hit the ₹1 lakh crore revenue mark? 37 years! The honour went to state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL), which breached the bar in FY01, after coming into business in 1964. Five years later, in FY07, the second company - the first from the private sector though to reach the mark was the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries (RIL). However, the journey for the oil-to-telecom conglomerate, incorporated in 1973, was a longer one, 12 years more than IOCL's. Though the subsequent ₹1 lakh crore came at a faster pace, in three years, IOCL retained its edge over RIL for a good 12 years. The competition at one point was so intense that when RIL declared it was the first company to hit 1 lakh crore in quarterly revenues in Q2FY14, IOCL issued a statement that it had achieved the feat way back in Q3 of FY12!

With RIL spreading its wings beyond oil and gas it was only a matter of time before IOCL's crown went to RIL in FY19. Since then, RIL has not only emerged as India's biggest company by revenue but has also secured the top rank on the Fortune 500 India list for each consecutive year. The only difference is that the over ₹1 lakh crore-plus difference that RIL enjoyed over IOCL in three years (FY20 to FY22) has shrunk to ₹48,181 crore in FY23. Though RIL's first-half revenue in the current fiscal (₹4.50 lakh crore) is ₹71,000 crore higher than IOCL's ₹3.79 lakh crore, it would be interesting to see by the year-end if RIL manages to widen the lead back to over ₹1 lakh crore.