He said the result probably would be a series of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) among the players, the smaller of whom have been rendered absolutely uncompetitive by Reliance's relentless surge for growth.

He cited, as examples, two moves already made by Reliance: its acquisition of a ICI India plant a few years ago (where production has vastly increased since simply by bringing it within the Reliance system), and its recent move to take an equity stake in the RPG group-owned India Polyfibres.

Reliance would be interested in such capacities only if it were to make sense to Reliance's quality standards and integrated production systems, hesaid.

Asked whether taking over such capacities in a situation where site orientation was so important to Reliance, Ambani said nothing would detract from the importance given by the company to site orientation and logistics.He said this would happen only if the capacity acquisition could serve a particular dedicated market. "At the India Polyfibres factory in Lucknow, for example, we shall be producing purely for the northern Indian regions around the location," Ambani said of plans for the new tieup.

He pointed out that uneconomic capacities would not survive, and that in more mature markets, there were barely three or four companies sharing the pie. Eventually, he said, most of these smaller capacities would have to go.

He stressed that behind Reliance's success in emerging as the country's top company (it claimed best figures in sales, net worth, assets and profits on Monday) lay the strategy of setting up huge, world scale capacities. He claimed that in all product categories, Reliance was amongthe 10 largest producers of those products in the world. Ambani linked the large capacity creation with the ability of the company to visualise and capture above-expectations market growth.