Samsung Chairman Lee visits India for Ambani wedding

Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Jay Y. Lee on Thursday visited India for the wedding of Anant Ambani — the youngest son of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani —and Radhika Merchant, a pharmaceutical heiress. The visit comes as the South Korean tech giant expands its businesses in the world’s most populous country.

Lee, also the head of Korea’s top conglomerate Samsung Group, arrived in Mumbai on Friday to attend the wedding at the Jio World Convention Center. The venue is owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s largest private-sector corporation, according to sources in Seoul.

Lee also celebrated in person the weddings of the Indian tycoon’s daughter, Isha Ambani, in 2018 and his other son, Akash Ambani, in 2019.

Mukesh Ambani is estimated to have assets of about $120 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Reliance is an Indian conglomerate whose businesses include energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecom, mass media and textiles.

EXTRAVAGANT WEDDING

The extravagant July 12-14 wedding ceremony for Anant Ambani and Merchant will follow a series of lavish parties the family has been hosting since March.

The couple held a three-day pre-wedding party in the western city of Jamnagar, Gujarat state, in March featuring with a performance by global pop star Rihanna. The high-profile guest list included Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates.

In May, Anant Ambani and Merchant hosted a cruise for friends and family on the Mediterranean Sea. The couple held another party in Mumbai later that month capped off by a performance by Justin Bieber.

SAMSUNG IN INDIA

After the wedding, Lee is expected to visit Samsung’s units in India and meet executives of network partners.

Samsung, which supplies 5G telecom equipment and others in India, is a network industry powerhouse in the South Asian country, the world’s second-largest mobile communications market with a population of 1.4 billion.

In 2012, the company exclusively provided Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom, with 4G long-term evolution (LTE) network equipment and in 2014 it built networks to complete the country’s first nationwide 4g LTE network over a two-year period.

In 2021-2022, Samsung won 5G equipment supply deals worth 1 trillion won ($726 million) from Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s No. 2 carrier.

The Galaxy series maker topped India’s smartphone market with a mobile phone factory in Noida, outside New Delhi.

Samsung, which began operating in India in 1995, runs a home appliances plant in Sriperumbudur, southwest of Chennai, R&D centers and a design center that altogether employ 18,000 workers.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.