Aditya Birla Group is one of India's largest conglomerates and also claims to be the most international of the country's major corporations. The company acts as a holding company for more than 72 manufacturing and services subsidiaries throughout India, and in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, China, Egypt, and Canada. Aditya Birla's major subsidiaries include Grasim, the world's leading producer of viscose staple fiber, and a manufacturer of rayon grade pulp, cement, sponge iron, textiles, and chemicals; Hindalco, a leading producer of aluminum and copper; UltraTech Cement, which produces portland cement and related products; Aditya Birla Nuvo, which manufactures clothing, textiles, and carbon black and is India's second largest producer of viscose filament yarn; Indo Gulf, a fertilizerproducer; Birla NGK Insulators (a joint venture with NGK of Japan), which is the world's leading producer of insulators; and Idea Cellular Ltd., a mobile service provider jointly owned with fellow Indian conglomerate Tata Industries. The company also produces software and provides IT services, and operates a number of financial productssubsidiaries. The company's Birla Sun Life InsuranceCo. is the second largest private sector insurance company in India, and its Birla Sun Life Asset Management Co. is the country's fourth largest assets manager. In other areas, the company claims to be the world's eighth largest producer of cement and the world's fourth largest producer of carbon black. These operations combine to generate revenues of nearly $7.6 billion per year. The company is led by Kumar Mangalam Birla, son of Aditya Birla.
Aditya Birla nonetheless remained committed to its structure as a highly diversified conglomerate. The company also took advantage of the liberalization of India's economy, launched during the country's economic crisis in 1991, to enter a number of new areas. In 1988, for example, the company launched a petroleum refining joint venture with Hindustan PetroleumCorporation. The company then entered the telecommunications market, forming a joint venture with AT&T of the United States, Birla AT&T, in 1995. That company merged with Tata Communications in 2000, becoming one of the country's leading telecom groups.
Through Hindalco, the company launched fertilizer production, under subsidiary Indo Gulf in the late 1980s; in 1998, Indo Gulf added the production of copper as well. In 2002, Hindalco was restructured, with its fertilizer production spun off into a separate company, Indo Gulf Fertilisers. Indo Gulf's copper business was placed directly under Hindalco. By then, Hindalco had acquired major rival Indal, an aluminum producer founded near Kolkata in 1938. That acquisition was completed in 2000; two years later, Indal boosted its aluminum foil production through the purchase of control of AnapurnaFoils. Indal was merged into Hindalco in 2004.
Other new markets for Birla included software development and IT services, which were regrouped into Birla Technologies Ltd. in 2001. The company entered the power generation market through a joint venture with Powergen PLC. In 1999, Birla added financial services to its range, forming a joint venture with Canada's Sun Life Assurance.
Into the mid-2000s, Birla also continued to expand its international network. The company made its first entry into the North American market, acquiring the Atholville Pulp Mill in New Brunswick, Canada. The purchase, completed in 1998, established Birla as the world-leading producer of viscose staple fiber and also marked its first major foreign acquisition. In 2003, the company turned to Australia, buying up the Nifty Copper mines in Western Australia. The purchase enabled Birla to develop into an integrated copper group, supplying its factories in India with raw material. Later that year, the company bought up a second Australia copper mine, at Mt. Gordon. In that year, as well, Birla extended its reach into the mainland Chinese market, where it established a carbon black production unit, Liaoning Birla Carbon. Back at home, the company launched a project to build a new aluminum production complex in Orissa, beginning construction in 2005.
Birla's international expansion continued to drive the company's growth into the mid-2000s. In 2005, for example, the company reached an agreement to acquire the St. Anne Nackawic Pulp Mill in Canada. The company also sought out new markets; in March 2006, the company announced its plans to build a $350 million viscose staple fiber plant in Laos. Aditya Birla had grown into one of India's leading conglomerates, and a major player on the world market.
One way in which Aditya Birla has hugely impacted my life was through its telecom product Idea Cellular.Connecting to me my loved is something Aditya Birla did for which I am grateful.